شم

شَمَّامٌ ذ A sort of melon resembling a small colocynth, [or rather a small melon resembling a colocynth, ] streaked with redness and greenness and yellowness: called in Pers. دَسْتَنْبُويَه [i. e. “ perfume ”]; (K;) originally دَسْتْ بُوى [or دَسْتْ بُويَهْ]: (TA:) its odour is cool, pleasant, lenitive, and narcotic; and the eating of it is laxative to the bowels: (K:) [The cucumis dudaïm of Linn.; called by Forskål cucumis schemmam: the latter thus describes it (Flora Aegypt. Arab. p. 169): “ Caules 5-sulcati, setis rigidis, scandentes, cirrhosi: folia cordato-oblonga, acuta, subsinuata, dentato-repanda, hispida: calyces villosi, molles: flores flavi, conferti in alis: fructus globosoovatus, glaberrimus, magnitudine citri, flavus, maculis inæqualibus, fulvo-ferrugineis, versus polos in lineas confluentibus; pulpa aquosa, seminibus tota plena: fructus juvenis villosus; maturus glaber: odor, fortis nec ingratus; eamque ob caussam cultus; non edulis: ” in the present day, the same appellation is applied in Egypt to several species of melon, of pleasant odour and taste; but this application I believe to be of very late origin: see also لُفَّاحٌ: and see De Sacy's “ Rel. de l'Égypte par Abd-allatif, ” pp. 126-7.]