250 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



should explain that their distinction, formerly exceedingly 

 difficult, has been established by M. Naudin ^ in a very 

 scientific manner, by means of an assiduous cultivation of 

 varieties and of experiments upon their crossed fertiliza- 

 tion. Those groups of forms which cannot fertilize each 

 other, or of which the product is not fertile and stable, 

 are regarded b}^ him as species, and the forms which can 

 be crossed and yield a fertile and varied product, as races, 

 breeds, or varieties. Later experiments ^ showed him 

 that the establishment of species on this basis is not 

 without exceptions, but in the genus Cv/)urhita physio- 

 logical facts agree with exterior differences. M. Naudin 

 has established the true distinctive characters of G. 

 onaxima and C. Pepo. The leaves of the first have rounded 

 lobes, the peduncles are smooth and the lobes of the 

 corolla are curved outwards ; the second has leaves with 

 pointed lobes, the peduncles marked with ridges and 

 furrows, the corolla narrowed towards the base and with 

 lobes nearly always upright. 



The principal varieties of Gucurhita viaxima are 

 the great yellow gourd, which sometimes attains to an 

 enormous size,^ the Spanish gourd, the turban gourd, etc. 



Since common names and those in ancient authors do 

 not agree with botanical definitions, we must mistrust 

 the assertions formerly put forth on the origin and early 

 cultivation of such and such a gourd at a given epoch in 

 a given country. For this reason, when I considei-ed the 

 subject in 1855, the home of these plants seemed to me 

 either unknown or very doubtful. At the present day 

 it is more easy to investigate the question. 



According to Sir Joseph Hooker,* Gucurhita maxirna 

 was found by Barter on the banks of the Niger in 

 Guinea, apparently indigenous, and by Welwitsch in 

 Angola without any assertion of its wild character. In 

 works on Abyssinia, Egypt, or other African countries 

 in which the species is commonly cultivated, I find no 



* Naudin, Arm. Sc. Nat., 4th series, vol. vi. p. 5 ; voL xii. p. 84. 



* Ibid., 4th series, voL xviii. p. 160 ; vol. xix. p. 180. 



' As much as 200 lbs., according- to the Bon Jardinier, 1850, p. 180™ 



* Hooker, Fl. of Trap. Afr., ii. p. 555. 



