PLAXTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 249 



Lastly, Elliott ^ writes as follows, in 1824, in a work 

 on the Southern States of America: " L. vulgaris is 

 rarely found in the woods, and is certainly not indigenous. 

 It seems to have been brought by the early inhabitants 

 of our country from a warmer climate. The species has 

 now beoome wild near dwellings, especially in islands." 

 The expression, " inhabitants of our country," seems to 

 refer rather to the colonists than to the natives. Between 

 the discovery of Virginia by Cabot in 1497, or the travels 

 of Raleigh in 1584y and the floras of modern botanists, 

 more than two centuries elapsed, and the natives would 

 have had time to extend the cultivation of the species if 

 they had received it from Europeans. But the fact of 

 its cultivation by Indians at the time of the earliest deal- 

 ings with them is doubtful Torrey and Gray^ mentioned 

 it as certain in their flora published in 1830-40, and 

 later the second of these able botanists,* in an article on 

 the Cvxurbitacece known to the natives, does not mention 

 the calabash, or Lagenaria. I remark the same omission 

 in another special article on the same subject, published 

 more recently.* 



[In the learned articles by Messrs. Asa Gray and 

 Trumbull on the present volume {American Journal of 

 Science, 1883, p. 370), they give reasons for supposing 

 the species known and indigenous in America previous 

 to the arrival of the Europeans. Early travellers are 

 quoted more in detail than I had done. From their 

 testimony it appears that the inhabitants of Peru, Brazil, 

 and of Paria possessed gourds, in Spanish calabazas, but I 

 do not see that this proves that this was the species called 

 by botanists CuMirbita lagmaria. The only character in- 

 dependent of the exceedingly variable form of the fruit 

 is the white colour of the flowers, and this character is 

 not mentioned. — Author's Note, 1884.] 



Gourd — Cucurhita maxima, Duchesne. 



In enumerating the species of the genus Cucu/rbita, 1 



' Elliott, Slietch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, ii. p. 663. 

 ' Torrey and Graj-, Flora of N. America, i. p. 544. 

 ' Asa Gray, in the American Journal of Science, 1 857, vol. xxiv. p. 442. 

 * Trumbull, in Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. vi. p. 69. 



