Length and Rapid Elongation of Pedicels of the Female Flowers of Cucumis anguria L.

Our recent work describing Cucumis zambianus Widrlechner, J.H. Kirkbr., Ghebretinsae & K.R. Reitsma, a new species from Zambia, led us to spend considerable time documenting inflorescence characteristics in this new species and comparing them to other, similar Cucumis taxa (10). Cucumis zambianus and C. anguria share a trait that is rather unusual, pedicels that are often considerably longer than the fruits they subtend. However, in C. zambianus, the pedicels are of considerable length (65-120 mm) at the time that female flowers open (10), while C. anguria is reported by some authors (but not others) to have much shorter pedicels at that developmental stage, with elongation evidently occurring rapidly (8) during the course of fruit maturity. Kirkbride (7) indicated that the pedicels of female flowers of C. anguria are initially quite short, ranging from 1.5 to 7 mm, but other authors, including Howard (3) and Jeffrey (4-6) reported much longer pedicels, from 13 to 105 mm.

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