BOTTLE GOURDS 341 



with a capacity of less than a pint, and they are found of all sizes 

 between these extremes. 



Miniature Bottle Gourd. A small form of the preceding, with 

 very handsome fruit about 3 or 4 in. long. A very prolific variety, 

 each plant producing as many as fifty fruit. 



Powder-horn Gourd. Fruit of a more or less long pear- 

 shape, with a well-marked neck, and variable in size. They can be 

 applied to the same kind of purposes as the fruit of the preceding 

 kind, and are used as powder-horns in some country places. 



Flat Corsican Gourd. A remarkably distinct variety, with 

 rounded flat fruit, rather like that of the Yokohama Gourd in 

 shape, but quite smooth and without ribs. It is from 6 to 8 in. 

 in diameter and 3 or 4 in. thick. 



WAX GOURD 



Benincasa cerifera, Savi. Cucurbitacece. Courge d la cire. 



Native of India and China. Annual. A creeping plant, which 

 spreads on the ground like a Cucumber-plant, with slender sharply 

 five-angled stems from 5 to 6J ft. in length. Leaves large, slightly 

 hairy, rounded, heart-shaped, and sometimes with three or five 

 faintly marked lobes ; flowers axillary, yellow, with five divisions, 

 which extend almost to the base of the corolla, broadly cup-shaped, 

 and 2 in. or more in diameter ; calyx reflexed, rather large, and 

 often petaloid. Fruit oblong, cylindrical, very hairy up to about 

 the time of ripening, when it attains a length of from 14 to 16 in., 

 with a diameter of 4 or 5 in. It is then covered with a white 

 bloom, like that which is seen on Plums, but much whiter and more 

 abundant, and constituting a true vegetable wax. Seeds flat, 

 gray, truncate. Their germinating power lasts for ten years. Its 

 culture is similar to that of other kinds of Gourds. The fruit is 

 eaten like that of other Gourds. The flesh of it is extremely light, 

 slightly floury, and intermediate between that of a Gourd and a 

 Cucumber. The fruit will keep pretty far into the winter. 



HOP 



Humulus Lupiilus, L. Urticacea. 



French, Houblon. German, Hopfen. Flemish, Hop. Italian, Luppolo. Spanish, Lupulo. 



Native of Europe. Perennial. This is not, properly speaking, a 

 kitchen-garden plant, but as, in some countries, the young shoots 

 are often used as table vegetables, we think it should be noticed in 

 this book. When the plants commence to shoot in spring, most of 

 the shoots are pinched off, so as to leave only two or three of the 

 strongest to each plant. The shoots thus removed are used as 

 vegetables. In Belgium the young shoots are much used as a 

 table vegetable, prepared in the same way as Asparagus or Salsafy. 



