374 Reirospectwe Criticism. 



heavy wet soil. In the grounds of the present Botanic Garden, the soil 

 of which is, for the most part, very light, many clusters were planted, in 

 various situations, early last autumn, which are now growing strongly. If 

 a little more attention were paid to this plant, and its seeds were sown, 

 the moment they are ripe, in a sheltered situation, it might soon be ren- 

 dered comparatively common. The seedlings will arrive at maturity in 

 about three or four years. — H. Turner. Botanic Garden, Bury St. Ed- 

 munds, April 19. 1833. 



It is impossible to effect the Cross-impregnation of the Cucumber (^Ciicumis 

 satwi's L.) and the Melon (C. Mt7o L.) with each other.. — Sir, I had till now 

 indulged the hope that I should not have had so soon again to trouble you 

 on the subject of my present letter. The seeds, however, which Mr. 

 Oliver was so kind as to send me (Vol. VIII. p. 612.), I have been unable 

 to excite to germination. Their failure I regret, because therein I may in 

 some measure lose a strong corroborating fact, which might have induced 

 conviction in those who still doubt the position I have endeavoured to 

 establish, viz., the impossibility of effecting, either by artificial or natural 

 means, the fertilisation of the C'ucumis sativus and Cucumis il^elo, or 

 vice versa. Inmiediately on examining the seeds sent, I felt certain of what 

 would be the result of their cultivation, and this I mentioned in a letter 

 to Mr. Oliver ; stating my belief that it would eventually prove that the 

 cross he had obtained was between the C. flexuosus, or a variety thereof, 

 and the C. AIh\o; confirming the truth of one of the conjectures I had 

 thrown out in my last communication. The contorted appearance of 

 the grains fully bears me out ; some of them are nearly a semicircle, and 

 all are more or less twisted : now, this is a distinctive character, never 

 found in the species C. sativus. I enclose you the few I have remaining, 

 that you may judge between us : on breaking them, you will easily per- 

 ceive they are unfitted for germination ; due, no doubt, to their age, 

 being from nine to eleven years old. No. 1. is the seed taken from what 

 Mr. Oliver describes as a large cucumber, fit only for mangoes (doubtless 

 this, previous to its coming into his possession, was a hybrid, between the 

 C. flexuosus, or snake cucumber, as it is commonly termed, and the melon, 

 by which cross it had lost its snake-like form : if Mr. Oliver had examined 

 the foliage and blossoms, he might have readily distinguished it from the 

 common cucumber) : the fruit that afforded the seeds now in question 

 must, in its infant state, have been fecundated by the pollen of the melon, 

 and it consequently produced the hybrid he mentions, intermediate be- 

 tween the two parents; the seed here, of course, remains unchanged, as 

 that of the mango cucumber, and is the most contorted. 



No. 2. was taken from the above first hybrid fruit, and now, provided 

 no foreign fecundation have again taken place, is become permanent; and 

 the seeds, being modified by the melon parent, are much less contorted. 

 The product of this it was that was sent to the London Horticultural 

 Society, and, from some unexplained cause, yielded no fertile grains; not, 

 certainly, because a hybrid production ; had that been the cause, it would 

 have been evinced by such failure in the previous generation. Need I say 

 more ? I have, I think, clearly shown that Mr. Oliver's hybrid militates 

 in no degree against my previous position. I have, in a former letter 

 (Vol. IV. p. 383.), enumerated the C. flexuosus as one of those congeners 

 that admitted of reciprocal fecundation with the C. Melo, and in my mind 

 it admits not of a shadow of doubt that, if Mr. Oliver's rnango cucumber 

 was not the C. flexuosus, yet that it was some other than the C. sativus. 

 I enclose also, for your comparison, seeds of the C. flexuosus, of three 

 different hybrids between that and C. ilfelo, and also the "melon trompe" 

 received from Vilmorin of Paris, which I also consider as a hybrid having 

 the like origin : no one of them is \\orth cultivating. 



