1887] History of Garden Vegetables. - 437 
four inches long by eight to ten inches in diameter, from Algiers ; 
the other an ovoid fruit, shorter, yet large, from China. The 
long variety, the seed from France, I grew in 1884, the fruit, 
oblong cylindrical, resembling very closely a watermelon while 
unripe, but when ripe covered with a heavy glaucous bloom. 
This plant is recorded in herbariums as from the Philippine 
Islands, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Feegee Islands, Tahiti, 
New Holland, and Southern China; as cultivated in Japan and 
in China.” 
In India the Benincasa is called the Pumpkin, and White Gourd? 
or White Pumpkin? in English, by the natives chal koomra,? panee 
koomra, or petha ;* in Japan, Ro or jungaoo In France, D 
casa and Courge a la cire 
This species is the Cibuli of Rheede, Hort. Mal., 8, p. 5, 
t. 3; the Camolenga of Rumphius, Amb., 5, 395, t. 143; the 
Cucurbita Pe sid of Louriero, Cochinch., 593; Benincasa cerifera, 
Savi, etc. 
Bure. Bitum sp. 
These spinage plants are almost of too little consequence for 
mention, yet they are included by Vilmorin? among garden vege- 
The blites are mentioned by Petit? as grown by amateurs 
in France on account of the singularity of their fruit, which re- 
semble strawberries, and also by De Candolle’ in 1815. Hence 
the English name Strawberry blite, and the French, £pinards- 
fraises. They are not mentioned by Noisette in 1829, nor do the 
seed occur in American seed lists. The plant that commentators 
interpret as the blite was cultivated by the ancients, but the de- 
scriptions appear to us to be too indefinite to enable identification. 
Blitum capitatum L. 
This species, if Linnzeus’s synonymy can be trusted, was known 
to Bauhin * in 1623, and by Ray™ in 1686. Miller’s “ Gardeners’ 
- Dictionary” refers it to J. Bauhin," who received the plant in 1651. 
The species was during this time little known outside of botani- 
t Cogniaux, Cucurbitacee, De C. Monog., 1881, iii. 513. 
2 Firminger, Gard. in Ind., 126. 3 Pickering, Ch. Hist., 606. 
4 Royle, Illust. of the Bot. of the Him., 218. 5 ed Amoen., 1712, 811. 
6 Vilmorin, Les Pl. Pot., p. 34, figured. 
7 Vilmorin, 1. c., 188 7. . : Petit, Dict. du Jard., 1826, 40. 
9 De Candolle, Fl. Fran., 1815, iii. 382. 1> Bauhin, Pin., 1623, 119, n. 7. 
z Ray, Hist., i. 197, n. 5, 7- 1z J. Bauhin, Hist., 1651, ii. 973. 
