Of the Melon, or Hedgehogge Thistle. Chap. 475.
✻ The description.
Who can but marvell at the rare and singular workemanship which the Lord God almightie hath shewed in this Thistle, called by the name Echino-Melocactos, or Melo-carduus Echinatus? This knobbie or bunchie masse or lumpe, is strangely compact and context togither, containing in it sundry shapes and formes, participating of a Pepon or Melon, and a Thistle, both being incorporate within one bodie; which is made after the forme of a cocke of haie, broade and flat belowe, but sharpe toward the top, as big as a mans bodie from the belly upward; on the outside heereof are fourteene harde ribs, descending from the crowne to the lowest part, like the bunchie or outswelling rib of a Melon standing out, and channelled betweene : at the top or crowne of the plant issueth foorth a fine silken cotton, wherewith it is full fraught; within which cotton or flockes lie hid certaine small sheathes or cords, sharpe at the point, and of a deepe sanguine colour, answering the cods of Capsicum or Indian Pepper, not in shew only, but in Colour; but the cods are somwhat smaller : the furrowed or channeled ribs on the outside are garnished or rather armed with many prickly starres, standing in a compasse like sharp crooked hornes or hookes, ech starre consisting of ten or twelue prickes, wherewith the outwarde barke or peeling is garded, so that without hurt to the fingers it cannot be touched : this rinde is harde, thicke, and like unto Aloes, of the colour of the Cucumber : the flesh or inner pulpe is white, fat, waterish, of taste sower, unsavorie, and cooling, much like unto the meate of a rawe Melon, or Pompion : this plant groweth without leafe or stalke, as our northren Thistle doth, called Acaulis ferme, and is bigger then the largest Pompion: the rootes are small, spreading farre abroade in the ground, & consisting of black and tough twigs, which cannot indure the iniurie of our cold climate.
✻ The place.
This admirable Thistle groweth upon the clifts and grauelly grounds neere unto the sea side, in the Islands of the west Indies, called S. Margarets Ile, & S. Iohns neer unto Puertorico or Portorico, & other places in those countries, by the relation of divers traveilers that have iourneied into those parts, who have brought me the plant it selfe with his seede; the which woulde not grow in my garden by reason of the coldness of the climate.
✻ The time.
It groweth, flowreth, and flourisheth all the yeere long, as do many other plants of those countries.
✻ The names.
It is called Carduus Echinatus, Melocarduus echinatus, and Echino-Melocactos : in English the Hedgehogge Thistle, or prickly Melon Thistle.
✻ The temperature and vertues.
There is not any thing extant set foorth of the ancient, nor off the later writers, neither by any that hath traveiled from the Indies themselves : therefore we leave it to a further consideration.