WILD CUCUMBERS 



CUCURBITA 



Squash and 



Pumpkin 



yielding a good crop. The creamy- white kind (" White Turkey ")is regarded as 

 one of the best forms. European cultivation has recently completely changed the 

 character of the plant met with in Indian towns. [Cf Ind. Gard., Dec. 21, 1899.] 

 Still it is a curious fact that although the cucumber is now fully acknowedged 

 to be a native of India, most of the fine English forms cannot be grown in 

 that country. 



Karit, 

 Katvel. 



C. trig-onus, Roxb., Fl. Ind., iii., 722 ; also C. turbinatus, Roxb., 

 723 ; Pharmacog. Ind., ii., 65-7 ; Kartiker, Pois. PL Bomb., in Journ. 

 Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., viii., 99-106, pi. G. : Duthie, Fl. Upper Gang. 

 Plain, i., 373 ; Prain, Beng. Plants, i., 522 ; Cooke, Fl. Pres. Bomb., i., 535 ; 

 C. pseudo-colocynthis, Royle, III., 220, t. 47, f. 3 ; C. pubescens, Wall; 

 Royle ; Wight, etc. The Jcdtvel, Jcdrit, pam-budinga, pulcha, puchcha, bis- 

 lumba, bislambhi, etc. An annual or perennial climber not cultivated, met 

 with throughout the greater part of the drier upland tracts of India, 

 Afghanistan and Persia. 



The name Indrayan sometimes given to it more correctly denotes ati-niiiis 

 CoiocyntMs, but I strongly suspect these two plants, and also the so-called wild 

 states of c. natieus (C. Hai-aicicMi, Royle) have been much confused by economic 

 and even by some botanic writers. The character of simple bifurcated tendrils 

 would, if rigorously applied, almost of necessity involve the transference of one-half 

 the sheets in most herbaria from atruiiufi CoiocvntMn to CucmniH ti-igonnM. 

 Indeed, all the examples of citrwiin* with small deeply dissected leaves 

 have simple tendrils, and can with difficulty be separated from f ncmif* /*<</>- 

 roiocyntMft. Royle. It is necessary to draw attention to this circumstance since 

 the properties of the kdrit do not differ materially from those of the true Coioe yntii. 

 But the plant of the sandy deserts is very different from that of the Himalaya, 

 and there may be two or more species ; but if so, then they have been very in- 

 differently described and identified. Roxburgh pointed out that his c. trigonal* 

 resembles very much c. Jieio, Linn., var. wtUinnintn. and Prain says c*. tr-igomifi 

 is sometimes considered the original source of the melon, and may equally be a form 

 of that plant which had become feral. 



The seeds yield a fixed OIL by boiling, which is used in lamps by the poorer 

 classes. The pulp of the fruit is bitter and similar in quality to Cntoeyittti. 

 It is not, however, possible to ascertain definitely the exact industrial and 

 medicinal value of this species until the ambiguities above indicated have been 

 removed. 



D.E.P., CUCURBITA, Linn. ; Fl. Br. Ind., ii., 621-2 ; Cooke, Fl. Pres. 



ii., 638-42. Bomb., 1903, i., 547 ; Duthie, FL Upper Gang. Plain, i., 377 ; Prain, Beng. 

 Plants, 1903, i., 524 ; CUCUBBITACE^E. 



History. Considerable confusion appears always to have existed as to the 

 history and nomenclature of most cucurbitaceous plants. It seems probable 

 that European pre-Linnsean names are suggestive of the first uses to which the 

 fruits were put, but can hardly be accepted as separately denoting the modern 

 genera and species. Thus, for example, Pliny (Hist. Nat., bk. xix., ch. 5) ob- 



Water and serves that cucurbitaceous fruits had long been used as wine-bottles, but in his 



Oil Bottles, day were just coming into fashion as water-pitchers at the baths. Hehn (Kulturpft. 

 und Haust., 6th ed., 304-14) derives conjecturally Cnemni* and Cucm-Mta 

 from cumera and corbita, low Latin words, the one meaning a covered vessel, 

 the other a basket (Germ. korb). Hence perhaps the remark by Columella (De re 

 Rust. (ed. Gesnero, 1773), xi., 3, 49), these fruits " are well suited for employment 

 as vessels." Incidentally it is worth noting that many of the early glass bottles 

 recovered from the Thames, Tiber and Seine are obviously modelled on the 

 bottle-gourd ( r^ngennrin- rtttyart*), and some of the bottles used for Italian 

 wines are to-day of that shape. It is thus not surprising that statements some- 

 tunes applied to *'ior&ff should have to be transferred to i-agenai-ia or 

 itcniiK'ttmt or vice versa. Still more frequently are the various species of 

 CKcur&ifrt confounded one with the other and their vernacular names in all 

 countries interchanged. Brief botanic diagnoses for the purpose of facilitating 

 distinction become accordingly almost imperative, 



440 



