CUCURBITA. 
283 
3 very large ovate-oblong bilobed distinct deflexed orange. Fr.- 
stalk strongly 5- (rarely 6-) angular rather than ribbed or 
sulcate, dilated and distinctly 5- (sometimes 6-) lobed at its 
insertion, the 5 or 6 lobes being regular and quite independent 
of the number of ribs on the fir. Fr. varying considerably in 
shape size and colour, but normally its form is spherical, de- 
pressed flat or umbilicate at top and bottom, and more or less 
distinctly though irregularly and always very flatly and obtusely 
ribbed. From this it passes through globose to ovoid or ob- 
ovoid (La Melonee ou Courge muscade des Marsellais Naud. 1. c. 
51. t. 2. B. ff. 3, 4), oblong (sometimes contracted in the middle), 
pear-shaped, or even clavate (Abobora da Rocha ; la Courge ber- 
bere ou bedouine Naud. 1. c. 52. t. 2. B. ff. 1, 2) ; and the nume- 
rous ribs, always broad and flattened, are often obsolete. The 
normal colour is a uniform dull dark gr., or when quite ripe 
orange-y. with more or less of a pink or salmon-col. tinge ; and 
both these colours are seen perhaps still more frequently united 
in large irregular broad clouds or patches on the same fr. in its 
intermediate stages of maturity ; the plain gr. and or. fr. occur 
continually also on the same pi. The whitish or glaucous bloom 
is never wanting in the ripe fr., and the skin is of a peculiarly 
fine smooth thin and even texture, wholly free from warts or 
tubercles. When half-grown or before maturity the fr. is of a 
peculiar dark blackish bottle-gr. ; whence, and from the dark- 
col. 1., probably, the name “ A. preta ” or Black Pumpkin. The 
flesh when ripe varies from salmon or orange-flesh-col. to deep 
carrot-red, being in the latter case peculiarly sweet or saccharine 
with a melon-like scent or flavour. There is always a large 
hollow cavity inside. Seeds shining minutely rugulose, pale or 
drab-brown, shortly ovate, 9 lines long, 4^-5 broad, very dis- 
tinctly bordered, the border raised and darker-coloured. 
The fr. varies in size from 10 to 20 in. in diam. (transverse or 
axile), and in weight from 20 to 80 pounds (usually 30 or 40). 
The best-flavoured in Mad. of this sort are perhaps those pro- 
duced on banks or slopes immediately at the back of the hot 
shingly beach of Magdalena, a village on the S. coast about 15 
miles to the W. of Funchal. 
Those who have only tasted the ordinary European Gourds or 
Pumpkins i. e. the fr. of C. maxima Duch. (les Potirons of the 
French, a sort not cult, in Mad.) or of C. Pepo L. (to which 
belong our English u Vegetable Marrows”) can have little notion 
of the superiority for culinary and confectionary purposes of the 
fr. of C. moschata ; which, however, even in Mad. vary much in 
excellence ; those of Magdalena being, as before said, celebrated 
as the sweetest and most sapid. The soup made from the ripe 
