Where the wild veggies are: Cultivated cucumber and melon originated in Asia and Australia
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 14:49
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Sites of origin and regions of domestication of many of our most important cultivated plants are still unknown. The botanical genus Cucumis, to which both the cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and the honeydew melon (C. melo) belong, was long thought to have originated and diversified in Africa, because many wild species of Cucumis are found there.