Cucumber

The cucumber is a creeping vine in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae, grown as an annual for its cylindrical to spherical fruits, used as a culinary vegetable in slicing, pickling and seedless cultivar types. The species originated in South Asia, in a region spanning India, Nepal, Bangladesh and parts of southern China, and has been cultivated for at least 3,000 years, reportedly grown daily for the Roman emperor Tiberius and later cultivated by Charlemagne. Spanish explorers carried it to the Americas in 1494 as part of the Columbian exchange. Today China grows more than three quarters of the world's cucumbers, and the wild cucumbers native to North America belong to unrelated genera.