PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 261 



The majority of the species of the genus Cucwnnis are 

 found in Africa ; a small minority in Asia or in America. 

 Other species of CvxurhitaceoB are divided between 

 Asia and America, although as a rule, in this family, 

 the areas of species are continuous and restricted. Gu- 

 cumis Melo was once perhaps, like Gitrullus Colocynthis 

 of the same family, wild from the west coast of Africa 

 as far as India without any break. 



I formerly hesitated to admit that the melon was 

 indigenous in the north of the Caucasus, as it is asserted 

 by ancient authors — an assertion which has not been 

 confirmed by subsequent botanists. Hohenacker, who 

 was said to have found the species near Ehsabethpolis, 

 makes no mention of it in his paper upon the province of 

 Talysch. M. Boissier does not include GvAywmis Melo 

 in his Oriental flora. He merely says that it is easily 

 naturalized on rubbish-heaps and waste ground. The 

 same thing has been observed elsewhere, for instance in 

 the sands of TJssuri, in Eastern Asia. This would be a 

 reason for mistrusting the locality of the sands of the 

 Niger, if the small size of the fruit in this case did not 

 recall the wild forms of India. 



The ctilture of the melon, or of different varieties of 

 the melon, may have begun separately in India and 

 Africa. 



Its introduction into China appears to date only from 

 the eighth century of our era, judging from the epoch of 

 the first work which mentions it.^ As the relations of 

 the Chinese with Bactriana, and the north-west of India 

 by the embassy of Chang-kien, date from the second 

 century, it is possible that the culture of the species was 

 not then widely diffused in Asia. The small size of the 

 wild fruit offered little inducement. No Sanskrit name 

 is known, but there is a Tamul name, probably less 

 ancient, molam,^ which is like the Latin Melo. 



It is not proved that the ancient Egjrptians cultivated 

 the melon. The fruit figured by Lepsius ^ is not recog- 

 nizable. If the cultivation had been customary and 



■ Bretsbhneider, letter of Aug. 26, 1881. • Piddington, Index. 

 * See the copy in Unger's Pfiamen des Alien, ^gyptens, fig. 25. 



