252 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



(Mexico and California) ; hut these are perennial species' 

 while the cultivated pumpkins are annuals. 



The plant called jurumu by the Brazilians, figured 

 by Piso and Marcgraf ^ is attributed by modern writers 

 to Cucurbita nriaxhiia. The draAvincj and the short 

 account by the two authors agree [)retty well with this 

 theory, but it seems to have been a cultivated plant. It 

 may have been brought from Europe or from Africa by 

 Europeans, between the discovery of Brazil in 1504, and 

 the travels of the above-named authors in 1G37 and 1G38. 

 No one has found the species wild in North or South 

 America. I cannot find in works on Brazil. Guiana, or 

 the West Indies any sign of an ancient cultivation or of 

 \vild growth, either from names, or from traditions or 

 more or less distinct belief In the United States those 

 men of science who best know the lan2;uafjes and customs 

 of the natives, Dr. Harris for instance, and more recently 

 Trumbull,^ maintain that the Ciocurbitacece called squash 

 by the Anglo-Americans, and taucock, or cashaiu, cushaw, 

 by early travelleis in Virginia, are pumpkins. Trumbull 

 says that squash is an Indian word. I have no reason to 

 doubt the assertion, but neither the ablest linguists, nor 

 the travellers of the seventeenth century, who saw the 

 natives provided with fruits which they called gourds 

 and pumpkins, have been able to prove that they wei e 

 such and such species recognized as distinct by modern 

 botanists. All that we learn from this is that the natives 

 a century after tlie discovery of Virginia, and twenty to 

 forty 3^ears after its colonization by Sir Walter Raleigh, 

 made use of some fruits of the Cucurbit acea;. The com- 

 mon names are still so confused in the United States, 

 that Dr, Asa Gray, in 18C8, gives pumpkin and squash 

 as answering to difierent species of Cucurbita^ while 

 Darlington'* attributes the naxwe p>um2)kin to the common 

 Cacurbita Pepo, and that of squash to the varieties of the 



Piso, Brazil, edit. 1658, p. 264; Marcpraf, edit. 16 IS, p. 44. 



Harris, American Journal, 1857, vol. xxiv. p. 411; Trumbull, Bull, 

 of Torrey Bot. Cluh, 1876, vol. vi. p. 69. 



Asa Gray, B tany of the Northern States, edit. 18G8, p 186. 



* Darlington, Flnra Cestrira, 185.3, p. 91. 



