Tiny Tango

by Judith Moffett

  Well, the immune melon bears male and female flowers that look exactly alike! You can't tell them apart, except by peering closely at the inner structures or tearing off the petals, because the ovary is tiny, and concealed entirely within the flower. The fruit is correspondingly tiny, about the size of a small orange -- much too small to appeal to growers, though I'd think home gardeners might raise it as a novelty.

  I've given this new cultivar the official name of Tiny Tango, a name to please the seed catalogue writers. Privately I think of it as Male Impersonator (or sometimes -- a pun -- Atomic Power Plant). Its rind is tan and thin, netted like the rind of an ordinary cantaloupe, and its flesh is a beautiful deep salmon-orange, as sweetly, intensely delicious as any I ever tasted.