Cucumis ficifolius

New plant for Morocco collected and photographed at Foum Khanguet, 27°56,75'N / 11° 18,7' O (Atlantic Sahara).

With Cucumis morphological key (Schaefer, 2007) we reach Cucumis ficifolius A. Rich plant from East Africa.

Sequencing of the ITS region of the nuclear genome leads to a plant from Burkina Faso collected as Cucumis figarei Delile ex Naudin name that is a nomen nudum (Kirkbride,1993)

Five regions of the chloroplast genome were sequenced. In four of them, the plant is a perfect match of a specimen of Cucumis ficifolius A. Rich. from East Africa. The fifth region (the trnS-trnG spacer) matches one sample from Burkina Faso, identified as Cucumis figarei Delile ex Naudin

Pending a comprehensive revision of this species group, we call the Foum el Khanget plant Cucumis ficifolius A. Rich., although she is genetically different from East African material of that species.

I warmly thank the Prof. Dr. Hanno Schaefer who did make molecular analysis in his research laboratory and interpreted the results