PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 257 



border.^ Cultivated in all tropical countries, it is less 

 successful than other pumpkins in temperate regions. 



Cogniaux ^ suspects that it comes from the south of 

 Asia, but he gives no proof of this. I have searched 

 through the floras of the old and new worlds, and I 

 have nowhere been able to discover the mention of the 

 species in a truly wild state. The indications which 

 approach most nearly to it are : (1) In Asia, in the island 

 of Bangka, a specimen verified by Cogniaux, and which 

 Miquel ^ says is not cultivated ; (2) in Africa, in Angola, 

 specimens which Welwitsch says are quite wild, but 

 " probably due to an introduction ; " (3) in America, five 

 specimens from Brazil, Guiana, or Nicaragua, mentioned by 

 Cogniaux, without knowing whether they were cultivated, 

 naturalized, or indigenous. These indications are very 

 slight. Rumphius, Blume, Clarke {Flora of British 

 India) in Asia, Schweinfurth (Oliver's Flora of Trop. 

 Africa) in Africa, only know it as a cultivated plant. Its 

 cultivation is recent in China,^ and American floras rarely 

 mention the species. 



No Sanskrit name is known, and the Indian, Malay, 

 and Chinese names are neither very numerous nor very 

 original, although the cultivation of the plant seems 

 to be more diffused in Southern Asia than in other 

 parts of the tropics. It was already grown in the 

 seventeenth century according to the Hortus Mala- 

 haricus, in which there is a good plate (vol. viii. pi. 2). 

 It does not appear that this species was known in the 

 sixteenth century, for Dalechamp's illustration (Hist., i. p. 

 616) which Seringe attributed to it has not its true cha- 

 racters, and I can find no other figure which resembles it. 



Fig-leaved Pumpkin — Ciicurhita ficifolia, Bouche ; 

 Cucurbit a melanosperr}ico, Braun. 



About thirty years ago this pumpkin with black or 

 brown seeds was introduced into gardens. It diff'ers 



^ See the excellent plate in Wight's Icones, t. 507, nnder the 

 erroneous name of Cucurhita maxima. 



2 Cogniaux, in Monogr. Phan^r., iii. p. 547. 



^ Miquel, Sumatra, under the name Gymnopetalum, p. 332. 



* Cogniaux, in Monogr. Phaner. 



S 



