PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIE FRUITS. 257 



border.^ Cultivated m all tropical countries, it is less 

 successful than other pumpkins in temperate regions. 



Cogniaux ^ suspects that it comes from the south of 

 Asia, but he gives no proof of this. I have searched 

 through the floras of the old and new worlds, and I 

 have nowhere been able to discover the mention of the 

 species in a truly wild state. The indications which 

 approach most naarly to it are : (1) In Asia, in the island 

 of Bangka, a specimen verified by Cogniaux, and which 

 Miquel ^ says is not cultivated ; (2) in Africa, in Angola, 

 specimens which Welwitsch says are quite wild, but 

 " probably due to an introduction ; " (3) in America, five 

 specimens from Brazil, Guiana, or Nicaragua, mentioned by 

 Cogniaux, without knowing whether they were cultivated, 

 naturalized, or indigenous. These indications are very 

 slight Rumphius, Blume, Clarke {Flora of Britisk 

 India) in Asia, Schweinfurth (Oliver's Flora of Trop. 

 xifrica) in Africa, only know it as a cultivated plant. Its 

 cultivation is recent in China,* and American floras rarely 

 mention the species. 



No Sanskrit name is known, and the Indian, Malay, 

 and Chinese names are neither very numerous nor very 

 original, although the cultivation of the plant seems 

 to be more diffused in Southern Asia than in other 

 parts of the tropics. It was already grown in the 

 seventeenth century according to the Hortus Mala- 

 baricus, in which there is a good plate (vol. viii. pi. 2). 

 It does not appear that this species was known in the 

 sixteenth century, for Dalechamp's illustration (Hist., i. p. 

 616) which Seringa attributed to it has not its true cha- 

 racters, and I can flnd no other flgure which resembles it. 



Fig-leaved Pumpkin — Cucurbita ficifolia, Bouche ; 

 Cucurbita Tuelanosperma, Braun. 



About thirty years ago this pumpkin with black or 

 brown seeds was introduced into gardens. It differs 



• See the excellent plate in Wight's Icones, t. 507, under the 

 erroneous name of Cucurbita maxima. 



' Cognianx, in Monogr. Phan^r,, iii. p. 547. 



' Miquel, Sumatra, under the name Gymnopetalum, p. 332. 



* Cogniaux, in Monogr. Fha/n4r. 



