ABSTRACT
Sir Hans Sloane and Leonard Plukenet both recorded these vines from the Caribbean in 1696. Linnaeus had seen them cultivated at both the Hortus Cliffortianus and Hortus Upsaliensis before he named them Melothria pendula in 1753. Although both Sloane and Plukenet had called them a Cucumis, Linnaeus appropriated for them an old term for a melon. There are now ten species, all native to the New World; several have edible fruits and are used locally in medicines (Mabberley 1997).
