The cucumber is a creeping vine that roots in the ground and grows up trellises or other supporting frames, wrapping around supports with thin, spiraling tendrils.[7] The plant may also root in a soilless medium, whereby it will sprawl along the ground in lieu of a supporting structure. The vine has large leaves that form a canopy over the fruits.[citation needed]
The fruit of typical cultivars of cucumber is roughly cylindrical, but elongated with tapered ends, and may be as large as 62 centimeters (24 in) long and 10 centimeters (4 in) in diameter.[8]
Cucumber fruits consist of 95% water (see nutrition table). In botanical terms, the cucumber is classified as a pepo, a type of botanical berry with a hard outer rind and no internal divisions. However, much like tomatoes and squashes, it is often perceived, prepared, and eaten as a vegetable.[9]
Most cucumber cultivars are seeded and require pollination. For this purpose, thousands of honeybeehives are annually carried to cucumber fields just before bloom. Cucumbers may also be pollinated via bumblebees and several other bee species. Most cucumbers that require pollination are self-incompatible, thus requiring the pollen of another plant in order to form seeds and fruit.[10] Some self-compatible cultivars exist that are related to the 'Lemon cucumber' cultivar.[10]
Traditional cultivars produce male blossoms first, then female, in about equivalent numbers. Newer gynoecious hybrid cultivars produce almost all female blossoms. They may have a pollenizer cultivar interplanted, and the number of beehives per unit area is increased, but temperature changes induce male flowers even on these plants, which may be sufficient for pollination to occur.[10]
In 2009, an international team of researchers announced they had sequenced the cucumber genome.[11]
Cucumbers grown to eat fresh are called slicing cucumbers. The main varieties of slicers mature on vines with large leaves that provide shading.[20]
Slicers grown commercially for the North American market are generally longer, smoother, more uniform in color, and have much tougher skin. In contrast, those in other countries, often called European cucumbers, are smaller and have thinner, more delicate skin, often with fewer seeds, thus are often sold in plastic skin for protection. This variety may also be called a telegraph cucumber, particularly in Australasia.[21]
Pickling with brine, sugar, vinegar, and spices creates various flavored products from cucumbers and other foods.[22] Although any cucumber can be pickled, commercial pickles are made from cucumbers specially bred for uniformity of length-to-diameter ratio and lack of voids in the flesh. Those cucumbers intended for pickling, called picklers, grow to about 7 to 10 cm (3 to 4 in) long and 2.5 cm (1 in) wide. Compared to slicers, picklers tend to be shorter, thicker, less-regularly shaped, and have bumpy skin with tiny white or black-dotted spines. Color can vary from creamy yellow to pale or dark green.[citation needed]
Gherkin
Gherkins, also called cornichons,[23] or baby pickles, are small cucumbers, typically those 2.5 to 12.5 centimetres (1 to 5 in) in length, often with bumpy skin, which are typically used for pickling.[24][25][26] The word gherkin comes from the early modern Dutchgurken or augurken ('small pickled cucumber').[27] The term is also used in the name for Cucumis anguria, the West Indian gherkin, a closely related species.[28]
Burpless
Burpless cucumbers are sweeter and have a thinner skin than other varieties of cucumber. They are reputed to be easy to digest and to have a pleasant taste. They can grow as long as 60 centimeters (2 ft), are nearly seedless, and have a delicate skin. Most commonly grown in greenhouses, these parthenocarpic cucumbers are often found in grocery markets, shrink-wrapped in plastic. They are marketed as either burpless or seedless, as the seeds and skin of other varieties of cucumbers are said to give some people gas.[29]
Shoots
Cucumber shoots are regularly consumed as a vegetable, especially in rural areas. In Thailand they are often served with a crab meat sauce. They can also be stir fried or used in soups.[30]
In 2022, world production of cucumbers and gherkins was 95 million tonnes, led by China with 82% of the total.[31]
Cultivation history
Cultivated for at least 3,000 years, the cultivated cucumbers "Cucumis sativus" were domesticated in India from wild "C. sativus var. hardwickii".[32][33][34] where a great many varieties have been observed, along with its closest living relative, Cucumis hystrix.[35] Three main cultivar groups of cucumber are namely Eurasian cucumbers (slicing cucumbers eaten raw and immature), East Asian cucumbers (pickling cucumbers) and Xishuangbanna cucumbers. Based on demographic modelling, the East Asian C. sativus cultivars diverged from the Indian cultivars c. 2500 years ago.[36] It was probably introduced to Europe by the Greeks or Romans. Records of cucumber cultivation appear in France in the 9th century, England in the 14th century, and in North America by the mid-16th century.[1][37][38][39]
Roman Empire
According to Pliny the Elder, the Emperor Tiberius had the cucumber on his table daily during summer and winter. In order to have it available for his table every day of the year, the Romans reportedly used artificial methods of growing (similar to the greenhouse system), whereby mirrorstone refers to Pliny's lapis specularis, believed to have been sheet mica:[40][41]
Indeed, he was never without it; for he had raised beds made in frames upon wheels, by means of which the cucumbers were moved and exposed to the full heat of the sun; while, in winter, they were withdrawn, and placed under the protection of frames glazed with mirrorstone.
— Pliny the Elder, Natural History XIX.xxiii, "Vegetables of a Cartilaginous Nature—Cucumbers. Pepones"
Reportedly, they were also cultivated in specularia, cucumber houses glazed with oiled cloth.[40] Pliny describes the Italian fruit as very small, probably like a gherkin. He also describes the preparation of a medication known as elaterium. However, some scholars[who?] believe that he was instead referring to Ecballium elaterium, known in pre-Linnean times as Cucumis silvestris or Cucumis asininus ('wild cucumber' or 'donkey cucumber'), a species different from the common cucumber.[42] Pliny also writes about several other varieties of cucumber, including the cultivated cucumber,[43] and remedies from the different types (9 from the cultivated; 5 from the "anguine;" and 26 from the "wild").
Middle Ages
Charlemagne had cucumbers grown in his gardens in the 8th/9th century. They were reportedly introduced into England in the early 14th century, lost, then reintroduced approximately 250 years later. The Spaniards (through the ItalianChristopher Columbus) brought cucumbers to Haiti in 1494. In 1535, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, found "very great cucumbers" grown on the site of what is now Montreal.[citation needed]
Early-modern age
Trans,cis-2,6-Nonadienal, or cucumber aldehyde, is a component of the distinctive aroma of cucumbers.
Throughout the 16th century, European trappers, traders, bison hunters, and explorers bartered for the products of American Indian agriculture. The tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains learned from the Spanish how to grow European crops. The farmers on the Great Plains included the Mandan and Abenaki. They obtained cucumbers and watermelons from the Spanish, and added them to the crops they were already growing, including several varieties of corn and beans, pumpkins, squash, and gourd plants.[44] The Iroquois were also growing them when the first Europeans visited them.[45]
In 1630, the Reverend Francis Higginson produced a book called New-Englands Plantation in which, describing a garden on Conant's Island in Boston Harbor known as The Governor's Garden, he states:[46]
The countrie aboundeth naturally with store of roots of great varietie [sic] and good to eat. Our turnips, parsnips, and carrots are here both bigger and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in England. Here are store of pompions, cowcumbers, and other things of that nature which I know not...
In New England Prospect (1633, England), William Wood published observations he made in 1629 in America:[47]
The ground affords very good kitchin gardens, for Turneps, Parsnips, Carrots, Radishes, and Pompions, Muskmillons, Isquoter-squashes, coucumbars, Onyons, and whatever grows well in England grows as well there, many things being better and larger. [sic]
Age of Enlightenment and later
Lobster, Crab, and a Cucumber by William Henry Hunt (watercolour, 1826 or 1827)
In the later 17th century, a prejudice developed against uncooked vegetables and fruits. A number of articles in contemporary health publications stated that uncooked plants brought on summer diseases and should be forbidden to children. The cucumber kept this reputation for an inordinate period of time, "fit only for consumption by cows," which some believe is why it gained the name, cowcumber.[citation needed]
[T]his day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newburne is dead of eating cowcumbers, of which the other day I heard of another, I think.
John Evelyn in 1699 wrote that the cucumber, 'however dress'd, was thought fit to be thrown away, being accounted little better than poyson (poison)'.[49][50]
According to 18th-century British writer Samuel Johnson, it was commonly said among English physicians that a cucumber "should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."[51]
A copper etching made by Maddalena Bouchard between 1772 and 1793 shows this plant to have smaller, almost bean-shaped fruits, and small yellow flowers. The small form of the cucumber is figured in Herbals of the 16th century, however stating that "[i]f hung in a tube while in blossom, the Cucumber will grow to a most surprising length."[citation needed]
Gallery
Salad cucumber
An Indian yellow cucumber
A Scandinavian cucumber in slices
Grated cucumber
Komkommer (Cucumis sativus 'Gele Tros')
A varietal grown by the Hmong people with textured skin and large seeds
^Silvertown, Jonathan (1985). "Survival, Fecundity and Growth of Wild Cucumber, Echinocystis Lobata". Journal of Ecology. 73 (3): 841–849. doi:10.2307/2260151. JSTOR2260151.
^Zhang, Tingting; Li, Xvzhen; Yang, Yuting; Guo, Xiao; Feng, Qin; Dong, Xiangyu; Chen, Shuxia (2019). "Genetic analysis and QTL mapping of fruit length and diameter in a cucumber (Cucumber sativus L.) recombinant inbred line (RIL) population". Scientia Horticulturae. 250: 214–222. doi:10.1016/j.scienta.2019.01.062. S2CID92837522.
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^National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Food and Nutrition Board; Committee to Review the Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium (2019). Oria, Maria; Harrison, Meghan; Stallings, Virginia A. (eds.). Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. The National Academies Collection: Reports funded by National Institutes of Health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press (US). ISBN978-0-309-48834-1. PMID30844154. Archived from the original on 9 May 2024. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
^Schieberle, P.; Ofner, S.; Grosch, W. (1990). "Evaluation of Potent Odorants in Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) and Muskmelons (Cucumis melo) by Aroma Extract Dilution Analysis". Journal of Food Science. 55: 193–195. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2621.1990.tb06050.x.
^Shang, Y; Ma, Y; Zhou, Y; Zhang, H; Duan, L; Chen, H; Zeng, J; Zhou, Q; Wang, S; Gu, W; Liu, M; Ren, J; Gu, X; Zhang, S; Wang, Y; Yasukawa, K; Bouwmeester, H. J.; Qi, X; Zhang, Z; Lucas, W. J.; Huang, S (2014). "Plant science. Biosynthesis, regulation, and domestication of bitterness in cucumber". Science. 346 (6213): 1084–8. Bibcode:2014Sci...346.1084S. doi:10.1126/science.1259215. PMID25430763. S2CID206561241.
^"Gherkins". Venlo, Netherlands: Zon. 2017. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
^"Cucumbers"(PDF). University of California-Davis: Western Institute for Food Safety and Security, US Department of Agriculture. May 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
^"Cucumbers and gherkins". Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
^ abJames, Peter J.; Thorpe, Nick; Thorpe, I. J. (1995). "Ch. 12, Sport and Leusure: Roman Gardening Technology". Ancient Inventions. Ballantine Books. p. 563. ISBN978-0-345-40102-1.
^Buchanan, David (2012). Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and why They Matter. VT, USA: Chelsea Green Publishing. p. 109. ISBN9781603584401.
^Kuhnlein, H. V.; Turner, N. J. (1996). Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples: Nutrition, Botany and Use. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach. p. 159. ISBN9782881244650.
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