PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. Zoo 



India, Roxburgh remarked this, and certainly Clarke, in 

 his recent flora of British India, has good reasons for 

 indicating no locality for it outside cultivation. 



It is otherwise in America. A variety, C. texana,^ 

 very near to the variety ovata, according to Asa Gray, 

 and which is now unhesitatingly attributed to C. Pejpo, 

 was found by Lindheimer " on the edges of thickets, in 

 damp woods, on the banks of the upper Guadaloupe, 

 apparently an indigenous plant." Asa Gray adds, how- 

 ever, that it is perhaps the result of naturalization. 

 However, as several species of the genus Cucurbita grow 

 wild in Mexico and in the south-west of the United 

 States, we are naturally led to consider the collector's 

 opinion sound. It does not appear that other botanists 

 found this plant in Mexico, or in the United States. It 

 is not mentioned in Hemsley's Biologia Centrali- 

 Aniericana, nor in Asa Gray's recent flora of Cali- 

 fornia. 



Some synonyms or specimens from South America, 

 attributed to C. Fei^o, appear to me very doubtful. It 

 is impossible to say what Molina ^ meant by the 

 names G. Sicercttia and C. raammeata, which appear, 

 moreover, to have been cultivated plants. Two species 

 briefly described in the account of the journey of Spix 

 and Martins (ii. p. 536), and also attributed to C. 

 Pepo,^ are mentioned among cultivated plants on the 

 banks of the Rio Francisco. Lastly, the specimen of 

 Spruce, 2716, from the river Uaupes, a tributary of 

 the Rio Negro, which Cogniaux^ does not mention 

 having seen, and which he first attributed to the 

 C. Pepo, and afterwards to the G. moschata, was per- 

 haps cultivated or naturalized from cultivation, or by 

 transport, in spite of the paucity of inhabitants in this 

 country. 



Botanical indications are, therefore, in favour of a 

 Mexican or Texan origin. It remains to be seen if 



^ Asia Gray, Plantce Lindheivieriance, part ii. p. 193. 



^ Molina, Hist. Nat. du Chili, p. 377. 



3 Cogniaux, in Monogr. Phanh-. and Flora Brasil, fasc. 78, p. 21. 



* Cogniaux, Fl. Bras, and Monogr. Phaner., iii., p. 547. 



