PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 251 



indication that it is found wild. The Abyssinians used 

 the word duhha, which is applied in Arabic to gourds 

 in general. 



The plant w^as long supposed to be of Indian origin, 

 because of such names as Indian gourd, given by sixteenth- 

 century botanists, and in particular the Pe2:)o onaximus 

 indie as, figured b}^ Lobel,^ which answers to the modern 

 species ; but this is a very insufficient proof, since popu- 

 lar indications of origin are very often erroneous. The 

 fact is that though pumpkins are cultivated in Southern 

 Asia, as in other parts of the tropics, the plant has not 

 been found wild.^ No similar species is indicated by 

 ancient Chinese authors, and the modern names of gourds 

 and pumpkins now grown in China are of foreign and 

 southern origin.^ It is impossible to know to what 

 species the Sanskrit name kurkarou belonged, although 

 Roxburgh attributes it to Cucurhita Pepo ; and there is 

 no less uncertainty w^ith respect to the gourds, pump- 

 kins, and melons cultivated bv the Greeks and Romans. 

 It is not certain if the species was known to the ancient 

 Egyptians, but perhaps it was cultivated in that country 

 and in the Gr?eco-Roman world. The Pepones, of which 

 Charlemagne commanded the cultivation in his farms,* 

 were perhaps some kind of pumpkin or marrow, but no 

 figure or description of these plants which may be clearly 

 recognized exists earlier than the sixteenth century. 



This tends to show its American origin. Its existence 

 in Africa in a wild state is certainly an argument to the 

 contrary, for the species of the family of Cucurhitacece are 

 very local ; but there are arguments in favour of America, 

 and I must examine them with the more care since I have 

 been reproached in the United States for not having 

 given them sufficient weight. 



In the first place, out of the ten known species of 

 the genus Cucurhita, six are certainly wild in America 



^ Lobel, IconeSf t. 641. The illustration is reproduced in Dalechamp's 

 Hist., i. p. 626. 



» Clarke, Hooker's Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 622. 



* Bretschneider, letter of Aug. 23, 1881. 



* The list is given by E. Meyer, Geschichte du Botanih, in. p. 401 . 

 The Cucurbita of which be speaks must have been the gourd, Lagenaria. 



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