206 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
Fruit fleshy or corky, globose or cylindric, terete or obtusely angled, 
smooth or ecbinate, or 3-valved. Seeds many, oblong, compressed. 
Species about 26. 
Distribution : — Tropical Asia and Africa, a few in Australia and 
America. 
Emit striped, 1 — 14 inches long, with soft, slender spines . C. prophetarum. 
Fruit 1| — 3| inches long, with distant stout spines . . C. pustulatus. 
1. Cucumis prophetarum L. Sp. PI. ed. I, 32 ; D C. Prodr. II, 
301 ; Boiss. FI. Or. II, 758 ; Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. IV, XI, 14 ; 
Anders. Journ. Linn. Soc. Y, Suppl. p. 19 ; Hook. FI. Brit. Ind. II, 619. 
Cucumis arabicus Del. in Cat. Hort. Monsp. 
Cucumis anguinus Forsk. FI. Aeg.-Arab. p. 168. 
Cucumis amarus Stocks in Herb. Hook. 
Description : — Annual, monoecious. Stems slender, branched, angled 
and grooved, scabrid. Tendrils striate, sometimes absent. Leaves 
polymorphous, rigid, | — 2 inches long and broad, scabrid on both 
surfaces, subtriangular-reniform or palmately 3 — 5-lobed ; lobes short or 
long, quite entire or dentate, obtuse or acute, base truncate or more or 
less deeply cordate. 
Male flowers solitary or fascicled ; peduncles filiform, densely hairy. 
Calyx and corolla hispid. Connective produced into a linear, flat, simple 
or 2-fid appendage, glandular at the top. Female flowers : Peduncle 
stout, ^ — I inch long, covered with rigid prickles. Staminodes linear. 
Fruit subglobose, 1 — 1J inches long, green with pale vertical bands,, 
covered with scattered, soft, slender spines. Seeds small, ^ inch long, 
elliptic-oblong, smooth ; pulp bitter. 
Mowers :- — March 1878 (Perry), December 1847 (Hooker). 
Fruits : — February 1851 (Thomson), November (Schweinf.). 
locality : — Plain of Maala (Defl.) ; Goldmore Valley, near the coal 
depots of the Messag. Marit. (Schweinf.) ; slope of Shum Shum Range 
(Ellenbeck) ; great valley between Steamer Point and Town (Marchesetti); 
in sandy places (Hook., Thomson, Anders.) ; Steamer Point (Lunt) y 
without locality (Birdw., Perry, Balfour). 
Distribution: — Sinai, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, Kordof an, Arabia,. 
Socotra, Baluchistan, Sind. 
2. Cucumis pustulatus Hook, in Qiiv. FI. Trop. Afr. II, 544 p 
Cogn. in DC. Monogr. Phan. Ill, 495. 
Cucumis abyssinicus Schimp. Herb. Abyss, No. 412. 
Arabic name : — Hamak-el-hhomr. 
