662 Kitchen Garden Esculents of American Origin. [July, 
principle, are gourds.” An examination of a more complete set 
of varieties than the marketman uses, however, shows that this 
classification is not always correct. The popular use of the terms 
seem to be, sguashes are those forms used on the table; pump- 
kins those forms that are grown for stock and for use in pie 
making ; gourds are Lagenaria vulgaris, and have white flowers. 
It is thus seen that the popular word as used now would be as 
misleading as are the popular words used by the early explorers. 
De Candolle is willing to grant that C. pepo is American, but 
is uncertain about C. maxima. He says, however, that seeds, 
certified by M. Naudin to belong to this species, have been found in 
the tombs of Ancon,a conclusive circumstance if the date of the 
latest burials at Ancon were certain. The Brazilians had, however,a 
name for this plant, Jurumu, and Pickering” quotes a Carib name, 
Jujuru or abora’ but Schomburgh! gives adodoras as the Brazil- 
ian name of C. pepo L. It is the Pepo maximus indicus compres- 
sus of Sloane (1707), Cucurbila pepo Aubl. Sloane’s name being 
the same as used by Lobel, 1581 (?).° In traditionary relations 
the large pumpkin appears in Mexico, for Bancroft® says: “In the 
golden age of Mexico, during the reign of Quetzalcoatl, pump- 
kins were said to measure a fathom round.” Pickering’ says that 
“melones” too large for a man to lift, some of them internally 
yellow, were noted by Oviedo’ in the West Indies. The “ 
moth” squash belongs to this section, and Loudon records a 
weight attained of 245 lbs., and a “ mammoth chili” was exhib- 
ited in New York in 1884 by a seedsman, which weighed 223 
lbs. In 1857 one weighing 264 lbs. was exhibited at the Califor- 
nia State Fair, and one weighing 313 lbs. is said to have been 
shown at the Smithfield Club Cattle Show in Liverpool? Messrs. 
Asa Gray and J. Hammond Trumbull” seem to have offered suffi- 
cient reason to believe that all the pumpkins and squashes are of 
American origin. I may only add therefore some horticultural 
evidence. 
1 Piso. Brazil, ed. 1658, 264; Marcq., ed. 1648, 44. 
Chron. Hist. of Pl., 709. 
3 Desc. 
+Hist. of Bar., 593. i 
_5De Candolle, Geog. Bot., gor. 
§ Native Races, III, 241. 
LG 
a : * Nat, Hist., 80. 
: i Am. Jour. oF aa May, 1883, 
