Medieval iconography of watermelons in Mediterranean Europe

Aims The watermelon, Citrullus lanatus (Cucurbitaceae), is an important fruit vegetable in the warmer regions of the world. Watermelons were illustrated in Mediterranean Antiquity, but not as frequently as some other cucurbits. Little is known concerning the watermelons of Mediterranean Europe during medieval times. With the objective of obtaining an improved understanding of watermelon history and diversity in this region, medieval drawings purportedly of watermelons were collected, examined and compared for originality, detail and accuracy. † Findings The oldest manuscript found that contains an accurate, informative image of watermelon is the Tractatus de herbis, British Library ms. Egerton 747, which was produced in southern Italy, around the year 1300. A dozen more original illustrations were found, most of them from Italy, produced during the ensuing two centuries that can be positively identified as watermelon. In most herbal-type manuscripts, the foliage is depicted realistically, the plants shown as having long internodes, alternate leaves with pinnatifid leaf laminae, and the fruits are small, round and striped. The manuscript that contains the most detailed and accurate image of watermelon is the Carrara Herbal, British Library ms. Egerton 2020. In the agriculture-based manuscripts, the foliage, if depicted, is not accurate, but variation in the size, shape and coloration of the fruits is evident. Both red-flesh and white-flesh watermelons are illustrated, corresponding to the typical sweet dessert watermelons so common today and the insipid citron watermelons, respectively. The variation in watermelon fruit size, shape and coloration depicted in the illustrations indicates that at least six cultivars of watermelon are represented, three of which probably had red, sweet flesh and three of which appear to have been citrons. Evidently, citron watermelons were more common in Mediterranean Europe in the past than they are today

Conservation of gene function in the Solanaceae as revealed by comparative mapping of domestication traits in eggplant

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) for domestication-related traits were identified in an interspecific F2 population of eggplant (Solanum linnaeanum × S. melongena). Although 62 quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified in two locations, most of the dramatic phenotypic differences in fruit weight, shape, color, and plant prickliness that distinguish cultivated eggplant from its wild relative could be attributed to six loci with major effects. Comparison of the genomic locations of the eggplant fruit weight, fruit shape, and color QTL with the positions of similar loci in tomato, potato, and pepper revealed that 40% of the different loci have putative orthologous counterparts in at least one of these other crop species. Overall, the results suggest that domestication of the Solanaceae has been driven by mutations in a very limited number of target loci with major phenotypic effects, that selection pressures were exerted on the same loci despite the crops' independent domestications on different continents, and that the morphological diversity of these four crops can be explained by divergent mutations at these loci.U.S. Department of Agriculture National Research Initiative Cooperative Grants Program (no. 96-35300-3646); The Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (no. US 2427-94); The National Science Foundation (No. 9872617) to S.D.T

Crop wild relatives of the brinjal eggplant ( Solanum melongena ): Poorly represented in genebanks and many species at risk of extinction

This is the publisher's Early View pdf without final pagination .© 2016 Botanical Society of America. This is an open access article, available to all readers online, published under a creative commons license. The attached file is the published version of the article

Adaptation de l'aubergine au climat mediterraneen : recherche de caracteres morphologiques et physiologiques impliques

SIGLECNRS T Bordereau / INIST-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et TechniqueFRFranc

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Influences réciproques des racines et des parties aériennes sur le rendement de l'aubergine (Solanum melongena L.) : résultats de greffages inter-variétaux

Afin de mesurer les effets de la croissance racinaire et des parties aériennes sur la production de l’aubergine de plein champ irriguée, les racines et les parties aériennes d’une variété méditerranéenne ont été échangées par greffage avec celles d’une variété venant d’Extrême-Orient. Les performances des plantes inter-écotypiques montrent que les racines et le feuillage ont des influences réciproques et équivalentes sur le nombre de fruits ; par contre, le développement racinaire a une influence prédominante sur le poids moyen des fruits. Aussi avec une croissance aérienne et racinaire supérieure, la variété méditerranéenne a le meilleur rendement en culture irriguée de plein champ dans le Sud de la France.Measurements have been made of the effects of root growth and shoot development on irrigated eggplant fruit production. Roots and shoots of a Mediterranean variety and an other from the Far East were exchanged by grafting. Growth and fruit production of these inter-ecotype plants (tables 1 & 2) showed that roots and shoots had an equal and reciprocal influence on fruit number, whereas the root growth effect was mainly on mean fruit weight. Therefore with better root and shoot growth, the Mediterranean variety has the largest fruit production under irrigation in the south of France