Friday, July 3, 2020

Of hermaphrodite and other strange flowers of the Spuredda Tarantino

As those who know me would probably already know, I am always looking for new information and research in the area of cucumber-melons. Of particular interest to me was an article about the crossing of a Mediterranean snake melon with an Indian hermaphrodite melon. The article is entitled, “Impact of Breeding Hermaphroditic Melon on Early Production and Yield: Case of Snake Melon (Cucumismelo var. flexuosus) and Tibish (C. melo var. tibish)”  Though I know this is not the most thrilling thing to all of you, I found it pretty interesting and wondered what it would be like to grow some hermaphrodite carosello fruit. Shortly thereafter, I discovered some strange-looking female flowers growing on one of my Spuredda Tarantino. Could it be? If not a hermaphrodite flower, it is at least a complete or perfect flower (having both male and female parts on the same flower). I was able to self-pollinate each flower, which would lead me to believe that it was capable of self-pollinating if there was ample wind, but I’m not sure if they would have self-pollinated in a greenhouse (without insect pollinators).


A "perfect" melon flower with both male and female parts.




The first time I identified the strange female melon flowers








A closeup of the half-female flowers








The female flower getting ready to set fruit



The perfect melon flower with both anthers and stigma























Despite growing the fruit out and collecting the seed, I’m not exactly sure what to do with the seed now. I’m at a point of thinking “Now what?” Will another generation of this seed produce weird-looking fruit or will it produce something that looks different from the parent fruit? I’m not exactly sure. If someone more knowledgeable than myself knows, please leave a comment below.







Along with the hermaphrodite flowers there were a couple of double flowers. I find it interesting that both the hermaphrodite and double flowers appeared around the same time, early in the season – though not on the same plant. I knew that the double flower may have aborted or not grown fully, so instead of chancing something it, I intervened and pulled it early. Though still – double flowers are kind of interesting to see.







2 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, I'm not more knowledgeable, but I was curious if you ever tried to grow any seeds from these. I was in my garden today and discovered a honeynut butternut squash flower with both male and female organs. And instead of a mini butternut shaped squash at the base of the flower, there is a sphere. The flower just opened today, so I don't know if it will grow, but it looks to be well pollinated. I was looking up whatever I could find about it, and came across your blog. I saw that this was back in 2020, and wondered if you were able to get viable seeds from yours.

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  2. Hey there Den Vita. Thank you so much for your question. I did not get a chance to grow the seed, as I decided that I was no longer interested in growing out this specific type of carosello cucumber variety. However, I have noticed that some of my other cucumber varieties have done similar things before. This may be a natural way for the plant to be able to keep up genetics even if the female flowers are not able to pollinate properly. I have heard that these mutations occur from time to time, though I am not exactly sure why.

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