6. Cucumis melo Linn. syn. C. melo Linn. var. cultis Kurz., C. pubescens
Willd., C. callosus (Rottl.) Cogn.
Eng: Sweet melon San, Hin: Kharbuja Ben: Kharmul Mal: Mulam
Tam: Chukkari-kai, Thumatti-kai, Mulampazham Tel: Kharbuja-dosha
Sweet melon is a creeping annual extensively cultivated throughout India, found wild
in India, Baluchistan and tropical Africa. The stem is creeping, angular and scabrous. Leaves
are orbicular-reniform in outline, 5-angled or lobed, scabrous on both surfaces and often
with soft hairs. Lobes of leaves are not very deep nor acute and with 5cm long petiole.
Female peduncle is 5cm. Fruit is spherical, ovoid, elongate or contorted, glabrous or
somewhat hairy, not spinous nor tuberculate.
Cucumis melo includes two varieties, namely,
C. melo var. momordica syn. C. momordica Roxb.
C. melo var. utilissimus Duthie & Fuller. syn. C. utilissimus Roxb.
The fruit is eaten raw and cooked. Its pulp forms a nutritive, demulcent, diuretic and
cooling drink. It is beneficial as a lotion in chronic and acute eczema as well as tan and
freckles and internally in cases of dyspepsia. Pulp mixed with cumin seeds and sugar candy
is a cool diet in hot season. Seeds yield sweet edible oil which is nutritive and diuretic,
useful in painful discharge and suppression of urine. The whole fruit is useful in chronic
eczema (Kirtikar & Basu, 1988).
Seeds contain fatty acids-myristic, palmitic, oleic, linoleic; asparagine, glutamine,
citrulline, lysine, histidine, arginine, phenylalanine, valine, tyrosine, leucine, iso-leucine,
methionine, proline, threonine, tryptophan and crystine. Seed is tonic, lachrymatory, diuretic
and urease inhibitor. Fruit pulp is eczemic. Fruit is tonic, laxative, galactagogue, diuretic and
diaphoretic. The rind is vulnerary (Husain et al, 1992).
7. Cucumic sativus Linn.
Eng: Cucumber, Common cucumber; San: Trapusah; Hin, Ben: Khira; Mal: Vellari
Tam: Vellarikkai, Pippinkai; Kan: Mullusavte; Tel: Dosekaya
Cucumber is a climbing annual which is cultivated throughout India, found wild in the
Himalayas from Kumaon to Sikkim. It is a hispidly hairy trailing or climbing annual. Leaves
are simple, alternate, deeply cordate, 3-5 lobed with both surfaces hairy and denticulate
margins. Flowers are yellow, males clustered, bearing cohering anthers, connective crusted
or elevated above the cells. Females are solitary and thickly covered with very bulbous
based hairs. Fruits are cylindrical pepo of varying sizes and forms. Seeds are cream or white
with hard and smooth testa. The fruits are useful in vitiated conditions of pitta, hyperdipsia,
burning sensation, thermoplegia, fever, insomnia, cephalgia, bronchitis, jaundice,
haemorrhages, strangury and general debility. The seeds are useful in burning sensation,
pitta, constipation, intermittent fevers, strangury, renal calculus, urodynia and general
debility (Warrier et al, 1994). The leaves boiled and mixed with cumin seeds, roasted,
powdered and administered in throat affections. Powdered and mixed with sugar, they are
powerful diuretic (Nadkarni, 1998). The fruits and seeds are sweet, refrigerant, haemostatic,
diuretic and tonic. Other important species belonging to the genus are:
C. trigonus Roxb. syn. C. pseudo-colocynthis
C. prophetarum Linn.