222 STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



1624, Bodaeus received from the West Indies some seed which bore fruit "Quae humanum 

 crassitudinem et longittuiinem superaret," which fully justifies Acosta's idea of size. 

 The Anonymous Portugal of Brasil ' says : " Some pompions so big that they can use 

 them for vessels to carry water, and they hold two pecks or more." Baro,'' 1647, also 

 speaks of "Courges et calebasses si grandes et profondes qu'elles servent comme de maga- 

 zin," and Laet ' mentions "Pepones tarn vastae, ut Indigenae its utantur pro vasis quibus 

 aquam aggerunt." These large-sized gourds were not, however, confined to America. 

 Bodaeus, as we have noted, grew fruits deformed in their bigness, to use Acosta's term, 

 from West Indian seed, and Cardanus * says he has seen gourds (he gives a figure which is 

 a gourd) weighing 80 and 122 pounds. Bauhin ' records the club gourd as sometimes three 

 feet long; Ray,* as five or six feet long; and Forskal,^ the bottle gourd as 18 inches in 

 diameter. These records of size are all, however, of a date following the discovery of 

 America, and the seed of these large varieties might have come from American sources, 

 as is recorded in one case by Bodaeus. 



The lagenaria gourd is of Old World origin, for water-flasks of the lagenaria have 

 been found in Egyptian tombs of the twelfth dynasty, or 2200 or 2400 years B. C.,* and 

 they are described by the ancient writers. That the gourd reached America at an eaily 

 period, perhaps preceding the discovery,' we cannot doubt for Marcgravius notes a cucurbit 

 with a white flower and of lagenarian form, in Brazil in 1648;'" but there is not sufficient 

 evidence to establish its appearance in America before brought by the colonists. What 

 the "calabazas " were which served for water- vessels, and were apparently of considerable 

 size, cannot at present be surmised. It is possible that there are varieties of Cucurbita 

 pepo not yet introduced to notice that wotild answer the conditions. It is also less pos- 

 sible that gourd-shaped clay vessels might have been used and were recorded by not over- 

 careful narrators as gotirds. In 1595, Mendana, on his voyage to the Solomon Islands, 

 said " Spanish pumpkins " '^ at the islands of Dominica and Santa Cruz, or according 

 to another translation,!^ " ptimpkins of Castile." It would seem by this reference that, 

 whether the " calabaza " of the original Spanish referred to gourds or pumpkins, it did 

 not take many years for this noticeable class of fruits to receive a wide distribution, and 

 it might further imply that Mendana, setting forth from the western coast of America, 

 discriminated between the American pumpkin, or pvimpkin proper, and the Spanish 

 pumpkin or gourd. 



' Sloane, H. Cat. 100. 1696. 



' Ibid. 



'Ibid. 



*Ca.Tda.miS De Rerum Var. 222. 1586. 



' Bauhin, C. Ptna* 313. 1623. 



Ray ffii/. P;. 1:638. 1686. 



''FoTskaX Fl. Aeg.- Arab. i6j. 1775. 



' Schweinfurth in JVo/wre 314. 1883. 



' Fruits of the lagenaria are at present carried to the coast of Iceland by ocean currents. 

 '" Piso Hist. Rerum Nat. Bras. 44. 1648. 

 " Dahymple Coll. Voy. 1:88. 1770. 

 " De Morga Philippine Is. Hakl. Soc. Ed. 68, 70. 1868. : 



