where this species was native, the accumulated evidence 
of more recent work shows it to be American in origin. 
Erwin (8) summed up the evidence thus: ‘‘The existence 
of specimens from pre-Columbian times, supported by 
the Seminole pumpkin which the Indians of that tribe 
claim is one of their ancient food plants, points rather 
definitely to the conclusion that C. moschata is an ancient 
American species’’. All the evidence cited by Erwin, 
however, merely establishes a long use for C.moschata 
within the United States (7) (8) (10). This is ‘also sug- 
gested by Bailey (8), who, in writing of the Okeechobee 
gourd which at one time was thought to be closely re- 
lated to the Seminole pumpkin, made the following state- 
ment: ‘““There appears to be nothing in the Seminole 
cultivation of this pumpkin to suggest the nativity of C. 
moschata: these people grow only well-developed rather 
than primitive forms of the species’’. Although this 
plant has had a long history within the United States, it 
may have had its origin much farther south and have 
been brought northward with maize. 
Following the formula proposed by Vavilov (12) for 
determining the origin of cultivated plants by locating 
the ‘‘regions displaying a maximal primary diversity of 
varieties’ and the “‘series of regularities in the distribu- 
tion of these varieties’, Zhiteneva (15) and Burkasov (4) 
concluded that the white-seeded group of Curcurbita 
moschata had its origin in Mexico and Guatemala. 
Wittmack’s (14) find of seeds in an old Peruvian 
tomb of Ancon, some of which Naudin identified as C. 
moschata, extends this species far southward at an early 
date. Unfortunately no definite date is given for this 
material and there is no indication whether it is the dark- 
seeded form of the species supposedly native of South 
America or the white-seeded form of Guatemala (4)(15). 
The presence of a carbonized peduncle of C. moschata 
[ 67 | 
