878 _DeCandolle’s Origin of Cultivated Plants. ° 
America” (p. 204). A collation of the descriptions of ‘‘ Pepones” 
or “Cucurbite,” given by European botanists of the 16th cen- 
tury, does away with this ambiguity. , 
Tragus (Hieron. Bock) De Stirpiwm Nomenelaturis, ete., 1552, 
p. 880, described and figured “ Melo, Pepo, Cucumis, and Citreo- 
lus;” and (p. 832) named, also, Cucumis sylvestris. In the 
next chapter (p. 834) he wrote “ De Cucumere seu, ut vulgo 
oquuntur, Zucco marino”—with a figure. “Many kinds of 
strange plants,” he says, ‘have been brought from remote parts, 
into Germany, in the last few years.” Among others, these 
“poma estiva,” of which some are large, some small, some 
round, some oblong, some sweet, others bitter, of various colors. 
“Some call these Cucumeri, and assert that they are Turkish 
Cucumeres, with which opinion I cannot agree. . . . I call them 
Mala cstiva & Indica,” of which he distinguishes four kinds, Mf. 
Indica crocea, lutea, citrina, and nigra. ‘ Commonly,” he says, 
“they are called Zucco marina, because they first came to Us 
from parts beyond the sea, some from Syria, some from India, 
which the names given them attest; for they are commonly 
called, Zucco de Syria and Zucco de Peru.” : 
The figure of “ Cucumer marinus, Ital. Cocomere marino,” etc., 
in the Efigies Plantarum of Fuchs, 1549, is a reduced copy of 
Bock’s, and substantially agrees with that of Pepo rotwndus 10 
Lyte’s Dodoens, p. 587, which was “called, also Cucumis marr 
nus; of some, Zucco marino ; in French Concombre marin, Pom- 
pons Turquins,” ete. : 
Matthioli, of Padua (Comm. in Dioscor., ed. 1559, p. 292) 1 
more explicit. “There are,” he says, “various kinds of cucar 
bits foreign to Italy, which can be kept fresh far into the wim 
ter. They say that these came into Italy from the West Indies, 
whence they are called by many Indian. " Their taste is sweet 
ish, not so insipid as ours,” ete. ; and his figure of “ Cucurbua 
Indica” agrees with that of Bock’s Zucco marinus (or “ Zuceo 
de Peru”) and with Lyte’s Pepo rotundus. 
It is certain, then, that the botanists of the 16th century to 
whom M. DeCandolle refers, used Indian—when applied to 
varieties of Qucurbita—in the sense of American. In the 17th 
century, the evidence is not less direct. Parkinson (Theatr 
Botanicum, 1640, pp. 769, 770) figures and describes (1) Cu- 
curbita lagenaria mayor, the greater Bottle Gourd ;” (2) “ ¢. reg 
ndica, ovalts; 
pyriformis, & fere rotundus, Indian Gourds, oval, peat fashionee 
and almost round.” Of these “Indian Gourds,” he ae 
“There is very great variety of these Gourds (or Millions, 
