flower is selected and pollinated. There are numerous varieties distinguished by size and the smooth or prickly rind. King of the Ridge has smooth fruits a foot or more long; gherkin, a short, prickly form, is much used for pickling.
Cucumber is subject to the attacks of green fly, red spider and thrips; for the two latter, infected leaves should be sponged with soapy water; for green fly careful fumigating is necessary.
The Sikkim cucumber, C. sativus var. sikkimensis, is a large fruited form, reaching 15 in. long by 6 in. thick, grown in the Himalayas of Sikkim and Nepal. It was discovered by Sir Joseph Hooker in the eastern Himalayas in 1848. He says “so abundant were the fruits, that for days together I saw gnawed fruits lying by the natives’ paths by thousands, and every man, woman and child seemed engaged throughout the day in devouring them.” The fruit is reddish-brown, marked with yellow, and is eaten both raw and cooked.
The West India gherkin is Cucumis Anguria, a plant with small, slender vines, and very abundant small ellipsoid green fruit covered with warts and spines. It is used for pickling.
Cucumbers were much esteemed by the ancients. According to Pliny, the emperor Tiberius was supplied with them daily, both in summer and winter. The kishuim or cucumbers of the scriptures (Num. xi. 5; Isa. i. 8) were probably a wild form of C. Melo, the melon, a plant common in Egypt, where a drink is prepared from the ripe fruit. Peter Forskäl, one of the early botanical writers on the country, describes its preparation. The pulp is broken and stirred by means of a stick thrust through a hole cut at the umbilicus of the fruit; the hole is then closed with wax, and the fruit, without removing it from its stem, is buried in a little pit; after some days the pulp is found to be converted into an agreeable liquor (see Flora aegyptiaco-arabica, p. 168, 1775). The squirting cucumber, Ecballium Elaterium, the Σίκυος ἄγριος of Theophrastus, furnishes the drug elaterium (q.v.).
See Naudin in Annal. des sci. nat. ser. 4 (Botany), t. xi. (1859); G. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening (1885); L. H. Bailey, Cyclopaedia of American Horticulture (1900).
CUCURBITACEAE, a botanical order of dicotyledons, containing
87 genera and about 650 species, found in the temperate
and warmer parts of the earth but especially developed in the
tropics. The plants are generally annual herbs, climbing by
means of tendrils and having a rapid growth. The long-stalked
leaves are arranged alternately, and are generally palmately
lobed and veined. The flowers or inflorescences are borne in
the leaf-axils, in which a vegetative bud is also found, and at
the side of the leaf-stalk is a simple or branched tendril. There
has been much difference of opinion as to what member or
members the tendril represents; the one which seems most in
accordance with facts regards the tendril as a shoot, the lower
portion representing the stem, the upper twining portion a leaf.
The flowers are unisexual, and strikingly epigynous, the perianth
and stamens being attached to a bell-shaped prolongation of the
receptacle above the ovary. The five narrow pointed sepals
are followed by five petals which are generally united to form
a more or less bell-shaped corolla. There are five stamens in
the male flowers; the anthers open towards the outside, are
one-celled, with the pollen-sacs generally curved and variously
united. The carpels, normally three in number, form an ovary
with three thick, fleshy, bifid placentas bearing a large number
of ovules on each side, and generally filling the interior of the
ovary with a juicy mass. The short thick style has generally
three branches each bearing a fleshy, usually forked stigma. The
fruit is a fleshy many-seeded berry with a tough rind (known as
a pepo), and often attains considerable size. The embryo
completely fills the seed.
 |
| Fig. 1.—Bryonia dioica, Bryony. 1, part of corolla of male flower with attached stamens; 2, female flower after removal of calyx and corolla; 3, berries; 1, 2, 3 about nat. size. |
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| Fig. 2. | |
| 1, Male flower of cucumber (Cucumis). 2, Same, in vertical section, slightly enlarged. 3, Stamens, after removal of calyx and corolla. |
4, Female flower. 5, Horizontal plan of male flower. 6, Transverse section of fruit. 1 and 4 nat. size. |
The order is represented in Britain by bryony (Bryonia dioica), (fig. 1) a hedge-climber, perennial by means of large fleshy tubers which send up each year a number of slender angular stems. The leaves are heart-shaped with wavy margined lobes. The flowers are greenish, ½ to ¾ in. in diameter; the fruit, a red several-seeded berry, is about ¼ in. in diameter.
Many genera are of economic importance; Cucumis (fig. 2) affords cucumber (q.v.) and melon (q.v.) Cucurbita, pumpkin and marrow; Citrullus vulgaris is water-melon, and C. Colocynthis, colocynth; Ecballium Elaterium (squirting cucumber) is medicinal; Sechium edule (chocho), a tropical American species, is largely cultivated for its edible fruit; it contains one large seed which germinates in situ. Lagenaria is the gourd (q.v.). The fruits of Luffa aegyptiaca have a number of closely netted vascular bundles in the pericarp, forming a kind of loose felt which supplies the well-known loofah or bath-sponge.
CUDDALORE, a town of British India, in the South Arcot
district of Madras, on the coast 125 m. S. of Madras by rail.
Pop. (1901) 52,216, showing an increase of 10% in the decade.
It lies low, but is regarded as exceptionally healthy, and serves
as a kind of sanatorium for the surrounding district. The
principal exports are sugar, oil-seeds and indigo. There are two
colleges and two high schools. In the neighbourhood are the
ruins of Fort St David situated on the river Gadilam, which has
