A little Ancient History for the Curcurbit Crops

Posted in Gardening Tips on March 8 2011, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education.

Many of you may be asking yourself; ‘what do plant breeders do in their spare time’? This thought never crossed my mind until I attended an in-house lecture at NYBG by an Israeli plant breeder. The plant breeder in question, Harry Paris, was born and raised in Brooklyn and has spent the past 30 years working and living in Israel.

He opened the lecture by explaining his interest in history; as a plant breeder he maintained that it is easier to know where you are going if you know where you have come from. That’s food for thought whether you are discussing Curcurbit or life in general.

What is a Curcurbit? I was once named one of my home gardening demonstrations ‘Curcurbit Crafts’ and was asked to change the title due to the concern that the public would not know what they were in for. I tamed the title to ‘Autumnal Centerpieces’ and ‘Groovy Gourds’. Curcurbitaceae is the botanical family that includes cucumbers, squashes, gourds, pumpkins and melons.

Dr. Paris proceeded to explain how you investigate the history of a Curcurbit. He used an interdisciplinary approach where he drew information from botany, horticulture, food use, archeology, history, linguistics and iconography.

As the talk unfolded it became apparent that Dr. Paris was the Sherlock Holmes of the cucumber. He was tracking references back into the past – back to the Romans, the ancient Greeks, and ancient Egyptians.

He must have been one of those kids that spent hours musing over jig-saw puzzles. He sought to find his answers by piecing together clues from the different sources mentioned above. During the course of the lecture he showed us how it was done; and it was fascinating to see how he pieced his evidence together.

In ancient texts, Dr. Paris found constant reference to Cucumis which was an important staple in ancient diets and a revered fruit. Past historian have decided that the historical reference pointed to cucumbers – the botanical nomenclature for cucumber is Cucumis sativus.

Paris started with the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder who wrote an extensive encyclopedia on natural history completed in 77 AD. Pliny’s reference to Cucumis described it as hairy. Cucumbers, as you know are smooth or prickly but never hairy.

Melons on the other hand, when they are young are hairy. Thus began his search into which melon was so important to ancient cultures that had made an appearance in many important historical and religious texts. He looked to iconography to see the pictorial depiction of this fruit and found that it had furrows or stripes as well as hairs.

Through a long search he ended up with the snake melon (Cucumis melo). The snake melon sometimes referred to as the Armenian cucumber can grow to be 3 feet long and snakes around into a long twisted shape.

In ancient times this melon wasn’t so long and twisted. It used to have a rounder shape. The melon was selected over time for a longer shape. Why would length have been a desirable quality? Paris hypothesized that long fruits have less of an endocarp (the section with all the seeds and gooey stuff) and more of a mesocarp (the middle fleshy area of a fruit). It looks like early hybridizers were also interested in getting more bang for your buck.

In his lecture Perry took us through the history of snake melons (popular in ancient time and obscure in modern times), cucumbers, bottle gourds and watermelons (that were insipid not sweet in ancient times). It was fascinating to watch him weave his knowledge of botany and horticulture into this historical investigation. Every plant has a tale to tell; and a historian to tell it.