86 REVIEWS. 



certain species of the genus is known as indigenous to Amer- 

 ica. He has equally allowed that none is known to be in- 

 digenous to the Old World. Now of the six species recog- 

 nized by Naudin, two only are known in their natural wild 

 state, and these are our southwestern species with perennial 

 roots, namely, C. j)erennis and C. digitata^ to which we add 

 that C. Pepo itself (i. e., C. ovifera or aurantia) grows wild 

 in the same district with C.perennis., and has the same appear- 

 ance of being indigenous there. We leave the subject with 

 these incidental remarks, as we did not intend here to investi- 

 gate this question, and will briefly allude to another subject, 

 upon which Naudin's investigations have thrown new light. 



It is generally thought that the cultivated Cucurbitacece, 

 and especially that the species of Cucurbita, cross-breed with 

 extreme facility. According to Naudin this is true of the races 

 only inter se. A good illustration of the immediate and 

 great variation from this cause in the fruit of C. Pepo is given 

 in Naudin's third plate, where fifteen different forms of the 

 fruit are figured, taken from as many individual plants raised 

 from seeds of one fruit, which had grown in the vicinity of 

 other varieties. It is by no means certain, however, that all 

 these forms originated from direct crossing. But the species 

 themselves strangely refuse to hybridize. Naudin carefully 

 experimented with the five species in cultivation at the Jardin 

 des Plantes (namely, all known, except C. digitata) ; and out 

 of seventy distinct trials all but five were utterly ineffectual. 

 In five instances the fruit set, indeed, but in none of these 

 was a single seed containing the vestige of an embryo pro- 

 duced ! What are we to think, then, of the universal belief 

 that squashes are spoiled by pumpkins grown in their vicinity, 

 or pumpkins by squashes ; and even melons (which are of a 

 different genus) by squashes ? The fact of some such in- 

 fluence seems to be well authenticated. Dr. Darlington, one 

 of the most trustworthy of observers, speaks of it from his 

 own knowledge, thus : " AVhen growing in the vicinity of 

 squashes the fruit [of the pumpkin] is liable to be converted 

 into a kind of hybrid, of little or no value. I have had a 

 crop of pumpkins totally spoiled by that cause, the fruit be- 



