To Ferrara for the weekend, and two plant ID mysteries.
In the Castello di Ferrara — a wondrous building — is a room dedicated to court banquets and the like. It featured extracts from an early how-to guide, Giovanni Battista’s Dello Scalco, published in 1584. There were also enlargements of images to do with food and banquets. Actually, the entire castle exhibit made great use of enlarged images, which worked rather well, I thought. But I digress. Among the images was the one I reproduce below.
“Whisky foxtrot tango,” I thought to myself. What is it? Could it possibly be a horned melon, kiwano, or Cucumis metuliferus? Hard to say. But having taken a snap of that and the frontispiece of the book, I figured I’d be able to find out later. ((The “English” of the castle’s translations unfortunately made my eyes bleed.)) It was not to be. Despite finding a gloriously usable scanned copy of the book, I couldn’t see any plates. And if it wasn’t from that book, I wasn’t sure where to look. Another manual from the same time didn’t have any plates either.
Of course I sent it to my friend Mr Peanut, who sent it to some of his cucurbit friends, and an answer may yet arrive. In the meantime, however, what can you tell me about it?
West Indian Gherkin (Cucumis anguria)?
More than a passing resemblance to the exploding cucumber, more formally Ecballium elaterium. The shape of the leaves and fruits match very well. But it’s not edible, which probably rules it out in this context. Ecballium featured in much bloggerly discussion earlier this year following the claimed identification of Datura fruits in a (pre-Columbian) Botticelli painting: http://www.3pipe.net/2010/06/misinterpreting-exploding-cucumber-for.html
Thanks for the link, Mark. Fascinating story, as is the scholarship and detective work.
I looked around here a bit, but didn’t find a match:
http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/herbals/explore.htm