TREATISE. 



CHAP. I. 

 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



THE Cucumber, Cucumis sativa, is supposed to be a 

 native of the East Indies; but like many other of our 

 culinary plants, the real stations which it naturally has 

 occupied, are involved in obscurity : in habit it is a trail- 

 ing herb, with thick fleshy stems, broadly palmate leaves, 

 and yellow axillary monsecious flowers. In the natural 

 arrangement of the vegetable kingdom, the genus of which 

 it forms part, ranks in the first grand class, Vasculares, 

 or those plants which are furnished with vessels, and 

 woody fibre ; in the sub-class Calyciflorce, or those in 

 which the stamens are perigynous; and in the order 

 Cucurbit acece, or that group, of which the genus Cucur- 

 bita, or Gourd family is the type. 



The affinities of this order, are chiefly with Loasacea, 

 and Onayracece; with the former it agrees in its inferior 

 unilocular fruit, having a parietal placentae, and with the 

 latter, in its definite perigynous stamens, single style, and 

 exalbuminous seeds. It has also some affinity with Passi- 

 floracea, and Papayacece, in the nature of the fruit, and 

 with Aristolochiacece, in its twining habit, and inferior 

 ovarium. M. Auguste St. Hiliare, also regards it as 

 being related to Campanulacece, in the perigynous inser- 

 tion of the stamens, the single style with several stigmas, 

 the inferior ovarium, and in the quinary division of the 

 floral envelope, in connection with the ternary division of 

 the fruit. 



