The Cucumber Plant.

Botanical name: 

Cucumis hortensis.

A CREEPING straggling plant sufficiently known. The stalks are a yard or two long, thick, but spread upon the ground, angulated and hairy. The leaves are broad deeply indented, and very rough, and of a bluish green colour; the flowers are large and yellow. The fruit is long and thick; the seeds are used in medicine, and the fruit should be suffered to stand till very ripe before they are gathered. They are cooling and diuretic, good against stranguries, and all disorders of the urinary passages; the best way of giving them is beat up to an emulsion with barley water.


The Family Herbal, 1812, was written by John Hill.