ACCUMULATION OF NEW CHARACTERS, 
have been traced back by Naudin to three primitive forms, Cucurbila Pepo, maxima, 
and moschaia, neither of which however is known in the wild state. These original 
forms have been as it were evolved from the resemblances and differences of the 
numberless varieties, and have only an ideal existence ; it is doubtful whether either 
of them ever actually existed, or whether these ideal parent-forms do not merely 
correspond to three principal varieties which arose from a single primitive form 
which possibly still exists, or from the hybridisation of several. The characters of 
many of these varieties are perfectly hereditary, and all the organs show the greatest 
degree of variation ; how great and various these differences are is seen from the 
fact that Naudin has divided the group of forms which he includes under the name 
Cucurbita Pepo into seven sections, each of which again includes a number of 
subordinate varieties ^ The fruit of one variety exceeds that of another variety 
more than two thousand fold in size ; the original form of the fruit is probably 
ovoid, but in some varieties it is elongated into a cylinder, in others abbreviated into 
a flat plate ; the colour of the rind varies almost infinitely in the different varieties ; 
in some it is hard, in others soft ; some have a sweet, others a bitter flesh ; the 
seeds vary in length from 5 or 7 to 25 mm.; in some the tendrils are of enormous 
size, in others they are altogether wanting ; in one variety they are transformed into 
branches which bear leaves, flowers, and fruits. Even characters which are normally 
constant throughout entire natural orders become extremely variable in the Gourds ; 
thus Naudin (Compt. rend. 1867, vol. LXIV. p. 929) describes a Chinese variety of 
Cucurbita maxiiria which has a perfectly free or superior ovary, whereas it is inferior 
elsewhere in the Cucurbitaceae and in the nearly allied orders ^. The varieties of 
Melon {Cucumis Melo) Naudin divides into ten sections, which differ also not only 
in their fruit, but also in their leaves and their entire habit or mode of growth. 
Some Melons are no larger than small plums, others weigh as much as 66 lbs. ; 
one variety has a scarlet fruit; another is only i inch in diameter but 3 feet long, 
and is coiled in a serpentine manner in all directions, the other organs being 
also greatly elongated. The fruits of one variety can scarcely be distinguished 
externally or internally from Cucumbers; one Algerian variety suddenly splits up 
into sections when ripe (Darwin, I.e. vol. I. p. 357). 
The behaviour of the genus Zea is similar to that of Cucurbita. The cultivated 
varieties of Maize are probably descended from a single primitive wild form which 
has been cultivated in America for a very long period ; but it seems doubtful whether 
the native Brazilian species, the only one known in the wild state, with long glumes 
enveloping the grains, is the primitive form ; if it is not, then no plant is now known 
which can be considered as the ancestral form of our numerous and extremely diverse 
varieties of Maize. In this case also continued cultivadon has increased the amount 
of difference between the different varieties, as well as to a prodigious extent that 
between them and the primitive form ; and the separate varieties are distinguished 
from one another by a number of different characters. Some are only feet high, 
others as much as 15 to 18 feet; the grains stand on the rachis in rows varying from 
^ See Metzger, Landwirthschaftliche Pflanzenkunde, p. 692, and Darwin, /, c. vol. I. p. 358. 
2 Hooker states that a specimen oi Begonia fri%ida at Kew produced, in addition to male and 
female flowers with inferior ovary, also hermaphrodite flowers with superior ovary. This variation 
was the product of seeds from a normal flower. (Darwin, /. c. p. 365,) 
