>Thompson himself was aware of the confusion later in his career, but explained it by saying that the Sumerians used the term UKUS-RIM for both plants "because of the similarity of the poppy capsule to the small cucumber."
>Honestly, I'm not seeing it.
I hate to see this stuff in a debunking article since it indicates that the author is not doing a very good job at trying to understand the claims. The "small cucumber" could easily refer to the cucumber around the time of polination, when it does look at least vaguely similar even today (and as ggm mentioned, it might have looked different then). See the second image on this page (and remember that the flowers will dry at some point):
Author here - fair enough, that sentence was maybe too flippant. I do mention in the caption that bitter cucumber looks more similar. But if the criterion for making the assumption is that some types of cucumber are sometimes round like poppy pods, then I think it's still not at all convincing.
>Honestly, I'm not seeing it.
I hate to see this stuff in a debunking article since it indicates that the author is not doing a very good job at trying to understand the claims. The "small cucumber" could easily refer to the cucumber around the time of polination, when it does look at least vaguely similar even today (and as ggm mentioned, it might have looked different then). See the second image on this page (and remember that the flowers will dry at some point):
http://blog.explosiveblooms.com/2013/07/lemon-cucumbers-are-...
Some of the arguments sound reasonable but I wouldn't put too much trust in this author.