248 ORIGIN or CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



and Cucurhita lagenceforrna of Marcgraf^ are per- 

 haps Lagenaria vulgaris as monographs say,^ and the 

 specimens from Brazil which they mention should be 

 certain, but that does not prove that the species was in 

 the country before the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci in 

 1504. From that time until the voyages of these two 

 botanists in 1637 and 1638, a much longer time elapsed 

 than is nee'Ied to account for the introduction and dif- 

 fusion of an annual species of a curious form, easy of 

 cultivation, and of which the seeds long retain the faculty 

 of germination. It may have become naturalized from 

 cultivation, as has taken place elsewhere. It is still 

 more likely that Cucurhita siceratia, Molina, attributed 

 sometimes to the species under consideration, sometimes 

 to Cucurhita maxima,^ may have been introduced into 

 Chili between 1538, the date of the discovery of that 

 country, and 1787, the date of the Italian edition of 

 Molina. Acosta^ also speaks of calabashes which the 

 Peruvians used as cups and vases, but the Spanish 

 edition of his book appeared in 1591, more than a 

 hundred years after the Conquest. Among the first 

 naturalists to mention the species after the discovery of 

 America (1492) is Oviedo,^ who had visited the main- 

 land, and, after dwelling at Vera Paz, came back to 

 Europe in 1515, but returned to Nicaragua in 1539.^ 

 According to Ramusio's compilation "^ he spoke of zueche, 

 freely cultivated in the West India Islands and Nicaragua 

 at the time of the discovery of America, and used as 

 bottles. The authors of the floras of Jamaica in the 

 seventeenth century say that the species was cultivated 

 in that island P. Brown,^ however, mentions a large 

 cultivated gourd, and a smaller one with a bitter and 

 purgative pulp, which was found wild. 



• Marcgraf, Hist. Nat. Brasilice, 1648, p. 44. 



' Na^idin, ibid. ; Cogniaux, Floi a Brasil.^ f asc. 78, p. 7 ; and de Candolle, 

 Monogr. Phayier., iii. p. 418. 



• 01. Gay, Flora CUlena, ii. p. 403. 



• Jos. Acosta, French trans., p. 167. 



• Pickering, Chronol. Arrang.. p. 861. ® Pickering, ibid. 

 ' Eamnsio, vol. iii. p. 112. 



• P. Brown, Jamaica, edit. ii. p. 354. 



