256 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



historical records are in agreement with or contrary to 

 this idea. 



It is impossible to discover whether a given Sanskrit, 

 Greek, or Latin name for the pumpkin belongs to one 

 species rather than to another. The form of the fruit is 

 often the same, and the distinctive characters are never 

 mentioned by authors. 



There is no figiire of the pumpkin in the Herharius 

 PatavicB Impressius of 1485, before the discovery of 

 America, but sixteenth-century authors have published 

 plates which may be attributed to it. There are three 

 forms of Pepones figured on page 406 of Dodoens, 

 edition 1557. A fourth, Pepo rotundus onajor, added 

 in the edition of 1616, appears to me to be G. tnaxiinna. 

 In the drawing of Pepo oblongus oi Lobel, Icones, 641, 

 the character of the peduncle is clearly defined. The 

 names given to these plants imply a foreign origin ; but 

 the authors could make no assertions on this head, aU 

 the more that the name of " the Indies " applied both to 

 Southern Asia and America. 



Thus historical data do not gainsay the opinion of an 

 American origin, but neither do they adduce anything 

 in support of it. 



If the belief that it grows wild in America is con- 

 firmed, it may be confidently asserted that the pumpkins 

 cultivated by the Romans and in the Middle Ages were 

 Ciicurhita maxima, and those of the natives of North 

 America, seen by different travellers in the seventeenth 

 century, were Gucurhita Pepo. 



Musk, or Melon Pumpkin — Gucurhita moschata, 

 Duchesne. 



The Bon Jardinier quotes as the principal varieties 

 of this species pumpkin musoade de Provence, pleine 

 de Naples, and de Barbarie. It is needless to say that 

 these names show nothing as to origin. The species is 

 easily recognized by its fine soft down, the pentagonal 

 peduncle which supports the fruit broadening at the 

 summit ; the fruit is more or less covered with a glaucous 

 efflorescence, and the flesh is somewhat musk-scented. 

 The lobes of the calyx are often terminated by a leafy 



