

BOTANY. 



HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE OP SOME CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



AT the American Association, Cincinnati, a paper was presented 

 from Dr. T. "W. Harris, of Cambridge, " On the Nomenclature and 

 History of certain cultivated Vegetables ;" the object of which was to 

 show, that the cultivated vegetables of this country, which have been 

 generally ascribed to an Eastern origin, are by no means European, 

 but purely American, and only introduced in Europe since the set- 

 tlement of the northern part of this country. The following abstract 

 embraces the result of Dr. Harris' investigations : 



The errors that have grown and spread, and multiplied with the 

 lapse of time, in this neglected field of research, says Dr. Harris, 

 require to be cleared away. Decandolle remarked that the species 

 of the genus Cucurbita ought to be worked out anew. The names of 

 the pumpkin and squash are no longer used precisely in their original 

 sense. In general, they are the fruits of the plants belonging to the 

 miscalled genus Cucurbita, as now restricted by Meisner and End- 

 licher. The illustrious Linnseus, following in the steps of his botani- 

 cal predecessors, for whose errors he is not to be held accountable, 

 gave the names of Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita melopepo to those 

 kinds of pumpkins and squashes that had been longest and best known. 

 He added to the list one more old species, the verrucosa, and a new 

 one, the ovifera, said to have been brought byLerche from Astrachan. 

 Several more species are now enumerated in scientific works, some sep- 

 arated from the pepo of Linnaeus (C. maxima and C. moschata}, and 

 others more recently detected and characterized. Most of the pump- 

 kins and the squashes that are cultivated in the United States as 

 articles of food, have been referred to the Linnsean species. Ever since 

 the time of Caspar Bauhin, whose " Pinax"' seems to have served as 

 the basis of botanical nomenclature, it has been taken for granted that 

 pumpkins and squashes were the pepones and melopepones of the Greeks 

 and Romans. If this be admitted, it must follow that pumpkins and 

 squashes were not only well known to the ancients, but that they were 

 natives of the eastern continent, to which, indeed, the most common 

 kinds are actually assigned by modern botanists. Dr. Harris, however, 

 shows that the pepones and melopepones of the Greeks and Romans 

 were not pumpkins and squashes ; that the latter were unknown to 

 the ancients ; that thev did not begin to be known in Europe until 



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