Entry for CUCUMIS longipes Hook. f. [family CUCURBITACEAE]
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, Vol 2, page 521, (1871) Author: (By Mr. J. G. Baker.)
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.