The following are the forms which Naudin enumerates as wild: 1. Those of India, which are named by Wildenow Cucumis pubescens, and by Roxburgh C. turbinatus or C. maderas-patanus. The whole of British India and Beluchistan is their natural area. Its natural wildness is evident even to non-botanical travellers.[1273] The fruit varies from the size of a plum to that of a lemon. It is either striped or barred, or all one colour, scented or odourless. The flesh is sweet, insipid, or slightly acid, differences which it has in common with the cultivated Cantelopes. According to Roxburgh the Indians gather and have a taste for the fruits of C. turbinatus and of C. maderas-patanus, though they do not cultivate it.
Referring to the most recent flora of British India, in which Clarke has described the Cucurbitaceæ (ii. p. 619), it seems that this author does not agree with M. Naudin about the Indian wild forms, although both have examined the numerous specimens in the herbarium at Kew. The difference of opinion, more apparent than real, arises from the fact that the English author attributes to a nearly and certainly wild allied species, C. trigonus, Roxburgh, the varieties which Naudin classes under C. Melo. Cogniaux,[1274] who afterwards saw the same specimens, attributes only C. turbinatus to trigonus. The specific difference between C. Melo and C. trigonus is unfortunately obscure, from the characters given by these three authors. The principal difference is that C. Melo is an annual, the other perennial, but this duration does not appear to be very constant. Mr. Clarke says himself that C. Melo is perhaps derived by cultivation from C. trigonus; that is to say, according to him, from the forms which Naudin attributes to C. Melo.
The experiments made during three consecutive years by Naudin[1275] upon the products of Cucumis trigonus, fertilized by C. Melo, seem in favour of the opinion which admits a specific diversity; for if fertilization took place the products were of different forms, and often reverted to one or other of the original parents.
2. The African forms. Naudin had no specimens in sufficiently good condition, or of which the wild state was sufficiently certain to assert positively the habitation of the species in Africa. He admits it with hesitation. He includes in the species cultivated forms, or other wild ones, of which he had not seen the fruit. Sir Joseph Hooker[1276] subsequently obtained specimens which prove more. I am not speaking of those from the Nile Valley,[1277] which are probably cultivated, but of plants gathered by Barter in Guinea in the sands on the banks of the Niger. Thonning[1278] had previously found, in sandy soil in Guinea, a Cucumis to which he had given the name arenarius; and Cogniaux,[1279] after having seen a specimen brought home by this traveller, had classed it with C. Melo, as Sir J. Hooker thought. The negroes eat the fruit of the plant found by Barter. The smell is that of a fresh green melon. In Thonning’s plant the fruit is ovoid, the size of a plum. Thus in Africa as in India the species bears small fruit in a wild state, as we might expect. The Dudaim among cultivated varieties is allied to it.
The majority of the species of the genus Cucumis are found in Africa; a small minority in Asia or in America. Other species of Cucurbitaceæ are divided between Asia and America, although as a rule, in this family, the areas of species are continuous and restricted. Cucumis Melo was once perhaps, like Citrullus 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 Elisabethpolis, makes no mention of it in his paper upon the province of Talysch. M. Boissier does not include Cucumis 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 Ussuri, 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 culture 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.[1280] 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,[1281] which is like the Latin Melo.
It is not proved that the ancient Egyptians cultivated the melon. The fruit figured by Lepsius[1282] is not recognizable. If the cultivation had been customary and ancient in that country, the Greeks and Romans would have early known it. Now, it is doubtful whether the Sikua of Hippocrates and Theophrastus, or the Pepon of Dioscorides, or the Melopepo of Pliny, was the melon. The passages referring to it are brief and insignificant; Galen[1283] is less obscure, when he says that the inside of the Melopepones is eaten, but not of the Pepones. There has been much discussion about those names,[1284] but we want facts more than words. The best proof which I have been able to discover of the existence of the melon among the Romans is a very accurate representation of a fruit in the beautiful mosaic of fruits in the Vatican. Moreover, Dr. Comes certifies that the half of a melon is represented in a painting at Herculaneum.[1285] The species was probably introduced into the Græco-Roman world at the time of the Empire, in the beginning of the Christian era. It was probably of indifferent quality, to judge from the silence or the faint praise of writers in a country where gourmets were not wanting. Since the Renaissance, an improved cultivation and relations with the East have introduced better varieties into our gardens. We know, however, that they often degenerate either from cold or bad conditions of soil, or by crossing with inferior varieties of the species.
Water-Melon—Citrullus vulgaris, Schrader; Cucurbita Citrullus, Linnæus.