LONG-LEAVED CALABASH TREE. 
73 
The shell of the fruit emptied of its pulp, is used in the 
West Indies for various kinds of domestic vessels, such 
as goblets, coffee-cups, tobacco-boxes, dram-bottles, &c., 
and it is said even for kettles to boil water in, it beincr so 
thin, hard, and close-grained, as to stand the fire several suc- 
cessive times before it is destroyed. The external surface 
is sometimes finely polished and ornamented with figures, 
coloured with indigo, rocou and other pigments. 
The Mexican Chronicle published by Purchas, (p. 1092,) 
records that the shells of this fruit, out of which they drank 
their cacao , were rendered as a tribute to the Mexicans 
from the towns of their hot countries who were their sub- 
jects. 
The leaves grow out in clusters of 9 or 10 together at 
unequal distances, and are from 5 to 7 inches long, and 
about an inch broad, narrowing very gradually towards 
the base, where they are almost sessile, ending in a rather 
long and acute point ; they are also entire, very dark-green, 
smooth and rather shining. The flowers come out on the 
trunk and branches, are of a dull greenish-yellow, about I \ 
inches long, marked with brownish streaks or veins, soli- 
tary and of a disagreeable smell ; the tube is almost glo- 
bosely ventricose, with the border 5-cleft, each of the divi- 
sions trifid, in long filiformly acuminated segments, the 
central one being longest. The stigma is deeply bilam- 
ellated. 
Plate CIII. 
A twig of the natural size, with a flower. 
