De a A al 
AMERICAN HOMES AND 
Pang 
GARDENS 
October, 1911 
A very extensive and prolific field wherein the French market gardeners are gathering and removing pumpkins of unusual size 
only in the form and the smaller size of its fruit, and in 
its earlier ripening. We will conclude the enumeration of 
the principal descendants ot Cucurbita moschata by men- 
tioning the Yokohama squash. ‘This rather late variety, a 
native of Japan, has a very long stem and a flattened fruit 
of a blackish-green color, rough and irregularly ribbed, and 
resembling a Prescott cantaloupe. 
We now reach those cultivated varieties which show the 
botanical characters of Cucurbita popo. In particular, the 
leaves are always lobed, and often deeply incised and 
covered with hairs, which in places become spiny. The 
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Some rather curious gourd forms selected from French gardens 
fruit stalk is five-sided, but does not expand at its insertion 
in the fruit, and is exceedingly hard when fully matured. 
The seeds are smaller than those of Cucurbita maxima. 
Among these varieties, the sugar squash of Brazil is dis- 
tinguished by earliness and the abundance and good quality 
of its small, oblong fruits, which have yellow flesh and a 
green, rough rind, which becomes orange on ripening. 
The white bush squashes form a group distinguished by 
their mode of growth. The stems, instead of creeping over 
the ground, are short, erect, and stocky. ‘The leaves are 
dark green, with a few gray spots, deeply incised, and with 
indented edges. The fruit is elongated and has five ribs. 
These white squashes are usually eaten before they are 
completely ripe. 
The Italian squashes, which ‘are elongated and of green 
or yellowish color, are also non-running varieties, derived 
from Cucurbita popo. The stems are very short and thick, 
the leaves are large, dark green, and deeply incised into 
five or seven lobes, with somewhat indented edges. The 
fruit has a smooth, dark-green rind, marbled with yellow or 
pale green. The early crook-neck squash, which is bright 
yellow in color, curved near the stem, and entirely covered 
with rounded excrescences, is valued especially as an orna- 
mental plant. The Touraine citronille, on the other hand, 
is cultivated chiefly as a field crop for the feeding of cattle. 
The rind is smooth and dark green, the flesh is yellowish- 
white and of inferior quality. The seeds, which are very 
oily, are used in France in the manufacture of certain medic- 
inal lozenges. 
The squashes which are called electors’ caps, or Spanish 
artichokes, although they probably originated in Mexico, 
are not the least interesting of the descendants of Cucurbita 
popo. The fruits are conical and fluted at the base, re- 
