A much branched prostrate annual or perennial herb. Stem generally co¬vered with scabrous hairs, leaves triangular, ovate, 3-5(-7)-lobed, scabrid with rigid hairs: petiole 1-6 cm long. Flowers small, solitary or rarely in pairs or threes, peduncle 5-10 mm long, densely hipsid. Calyx c. 1.5 mm long, subulate. Corolla 6-8 mm long, yellow, lobes ovate-oblong. Fruit ellipsoid, oval-globose, sometimes obscurely trigonous, smooth and glabrescent, 4 x 2.5 cm, generally with dark green stripes.

Fl. Per.: July-Nov.

Type: From plants cultivated in Paris from Rheed’s collection in India (P).

Distribution: Throughout the Old-World tropics, adventive in neotropics.

Note: i. Many collections from Pakistan have ovaries with rather long adpressed, forward pointing hairs, in this respect being somewhat intermediate with wild subsp. melo which occurs in adjacent part to the USSR & S.W. Asia.

ii. Perennial forms have been sometimes treated as a distinct species, Cucumis trigonus Roxb. The status of these taxa needs elucidation by comparative studies in the field.