LAGEXAPvIA. 
289 
perty recommending it for good sea-stock. It is, however, 
scarcely eatable except quite young, having even then a vapid 
somewhat bitter taste when boiled. In the Canaries it is more 
commonly cultivated than any other sort, under the name (at 
least about Orotava in Tenerife) of u Pantana ” ; and in Palma 
the favourite elegant but insipid preserve called u Angel’s Hair ” 
is made from the long spongy strings ( funicles ) of the* seeds. 
C. maxima Duch. (Naud. 1. c. p. 17. t. 1. ff. 1-11) has only now 
and then occurred in some of its curious coronated smaller- 
fruited Turk’s-cap varr. (les petits Turbans of the French) with 
the carpels projecting above the cup-shaped recept. or at the 
top of the fr., and cult, merely for the singularity or beauty of 
the latter. The larger edible sorts, with or without a crown to 
the fr., so much grown in France, and also (especially the 
latter) recently in England (le Turban rouge and the netted or 
smooth Totiron maralchcr ou jaune , the netted being com- 
monest in Paris and the smooth in England), have never 
been observed by me either in the Canaries or Mad. Though 
the fr of the smooth Totiron jaune, at least as grown in Eng- 
land, is vastly inferior in flavour to that of the Mad. C. mos- 
ckata , it much excels that of the Boganga ( C. melanosperma ) ; 
and the great size which it frequently attains (1^—2 ft. or more 
in diam. weighing 100 lbs. and upwards) might make this 
var. especially valuable in Mad. 
With much the habit and foliage of C. Pepo Ser., especially as to 
the strigose asperity of the st., leaves and l.-stalks, C. maxima 
is at once distinguishable as a sp. by the thick corky round or 
clavate merely striated (not sulcate ribbed or angular) fr.-stalk. 
The fr. in the common smooth Totiron jaune is a remarkably 
depressed sphere, hollow at the poles, with a very short axis 
compared with its diam., very faintly or obsoletely ribbed, and 
of a uniform pale ochre-y. without bloom. The flesh is 
or.-y. and pulpy, but with little flavour or sweetness. The 
seeds are elliptic-oval sharp-pointed at one end, 9-11 or 12 
lines long, 5-6 broad, faintly and minutely granulato-rujrulose, 
very pale or quite w. and with a narrow border. The 1. differ 
from those of C. Pepo Ser. in their blunt or rounded shallow 
lobes, and in being set horizontally on their petioles, which, 
though strigose like the st. with harsh stiff bristles, can scarcely 
be called prickly. 
ttt2. Lagenaria Ser. 
Bottle Gourd. 
t++l. L. VULGARIS Ser. in DC. Cabaga. 
Greyish or hoary and softly pubescent or subtomentose ; st. 
upwards petioles and cal. villous almost shaggy ; 1. soft and flac- 
cid broadly triangularly-cordate or angularly rounded scarcely 
p 2 
