["Melon."—The miniature melon sent has been identified by Baron vou1 Mueller as the Cucumis Myriocapa,2 which is a native of South Africa It has a very bitter taste, but it contains medicinal principles not unlike the Coloquint3, which is so well known as an aperient. It is an annual, and is known in this country as the wild melon. It grows plentifully on the Darling, the Werribee, and the Loddon rivers. No kind of stock will eat it—not even hungry pigs.]
Cucumis Myriocapa
Typesetter's error for von.
Cucumis myriocarpus?
'Coloquint' is described as obsolete (OED), but for its use as a pre-Linnean short name see Fuchs (1543), Cap. CXXXIX, plate CCX (image with manuscript annotation in unknown hand as 'cucumis Calocyntis' at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Coloquint_Fuchs_1543_377.jpg.)
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The Yeoman. Answers to correspondents', Australasian (Melbourne), 25 May 1895, p. 965. Assuming that the reply would be published in the next available issue in this weekly newspaper, it is dated to 17 May 1895 as the likely earliest date it would have been sent.
Please cite as “FVM-95-05-17b,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on
