History of Monsters. 705

XXII. Monstrous bean pods.

A similar phenomenon is seen in animals when two fetuses, for whatever reason, become joined in the mother’s womb and merge into a single being. This "doubled" creature eventually emerges into the light of life, just as we explained in detail in the previous chapter.

I once observed another wonder similar to this monster: a twin fruit among the melopepons. There are many species of these, which I will discuss in their proper place. The word *pepon* is derived from the Greek verb *pepto*, meaning "to cook" or "to ripen." This is because these fruits do not please the palate unless they are "cooked" by the heat of the sun and reach perfect maturity—unlike other fruits which, even if not perfectly ripe, can still offer some pleasant flavor to the tongue.

Pepons and melopepons appear to differ in both shape and size. Authors usually assign the name "pepon" to those that are larger and oblong, while those that reflect the round shape of an apple are called "melopepons," a name forged from the words for "apple" and "pepon." Palladius called this type *melones* (as if from the Greek *melonas*, meaning apple-like), a name that is widely used today.

Within this genus, we present two joined melopepons, as seen in Illustration XXIII, which skillfully mimic the appearance of twin offspring. Furthermore, Illustration XXIV shows melopepons that are hunched and misshapen by nature.