Compilation
Cucumis longipes

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Name

Identification
Cucumis longipes Hook.f. [family CUCURBITACEAE ] Cucumis anguria L. [family CUCURBITACEAE ] (stored under name); Verified by Kirkbride,J.J.H.,
Related name
  • Cucumis anguria
  • Cucumis longipes

Flora

Entry for CUCUMIS longipes Hook. f. [family CUCURBITACEAE]
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, Vol 2, page 521, (1871) Author: (By Mr. J. G. Baker.)
Names
CUCUMIS longipes Hook. f. [family CUCURBITACEAE]
Information
Annual? Monœcious; prostrate, pale green, flaccid, slightly scabrid. Stems slender, angled, scabrid with short stiff aculei. Leaves 2–4 in. long, as in C. ficifolius, cut deeply into 5–7 obovate rounded toothed lobes, scabrous on both surfaces; petioles rather long. Tendrils very slender. Male fl.: Peduncles slender, simple or branched at the base. Calyx hispid. Anthers ciliate, connective with a produced flat glandular appendage. Female fl.: Peduncle 2–4 in. stout, hispid. Ovary echinate with short stiff prickles. Staminodes subulate. Berry oblong, 2 in. long, on a stout curved peduncle 3–5 in., rounded at both ends, quite smooth and glabrous except for a very few small scattered prickles. Seeds very small, 1/6 in. long, elliptic-oblong, pale brown, smooth, margins rounded, not thickened, disk not depressed.
Distribution
Angola Lower Guinea in thickets, Golungo Alto, Cazengo, on the sea-shore and in and about the town of Loanda, Dr. Welwitsch!
Notes
A very distinct species in fruit, though undistinguishable in foliage and flowers from C. Anguria, Figarei, &c. Welwitsch describes the fruit as tasting like cucumber. C.? striatus, A. Rich. Fl. Abyss. i. 295, is unknown to me; the leaves are digitately 5-partite, fruit the size of a large walnut, smooth, glabrous, with 10 striæ; the flowers are unknown. Schweinfurth (Plant. Nilot. 17) describes the male flower, but does not detail the structure of the stamens, and considers it as possibly a Cucurbita. There are various other indeterminable species of Cucumis in the Tropical African collections at Kew; amongst the principal is the following from sandy shores, Mossamedes, Lower Guinea, Dr Welwitsch (n. 831). A large green scabrid species, with long stout-petioled hastate cordate acute leaves, 2 in. long and broad, hispidly scabrid on both surfaces; male flowers, peduncle 1/3 in. diameter; female larger on slender pedicels; ovary oblong, densely clothed with silky white hairs.

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