All the cucumbers and gourds vary immensely, but the melon (Cucumis
melo) exceeds them all. A French botanist, M. Naudin, devoted six years
to their study. He found that previous botanists had described thirty
distinct species, as they thought, which were really only varieties of
melons. They differ chiefly in their fruits, but also very much in
foliage and mode of growth. Some melons are only as large as small
plums, others weigh as much as sixty-six pounds. One variety has a
scarlet fruit. Another is not more than an inch in diameter, but
sometimes more than a yard in length, twisting about in all directions
like a serpent. Some melons are exactly like cucumbers; and an Algerian
variety, when ripe, cracks and falls to pieces, just as occurs in a
wild gourd (C. momordica).[32]
_Variations of Flowers._
Turning to flowers, we find that in the same genus as our currant and
gooseberry, which we have cultivated for their fruits, there are some
ornamental species, as the Ribes sanguinea, and in these the flowers
have been selected so as to produce deep red, pink, or white varieties.
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