DESCRIPTION AND KEY 
OF. THE 
GENUS CUCURBITA 
FRED C. WERKENTHIN 
ORIGIN OF CUCURBITA SPECIES 
/. H. Trumbull , in a letter quoted in Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 
Vol. (5:69-70; 1876, states, “I could never discover where the 
doubt came in, as to the American origin of several well-known 
varieties of these gourds, or Millions as some call them, or 
Pompions as I may call them. In England, the name ‘squash’ 
was understood to be of American origin. Robert Boyle men- 
tions his experiment with the seed of ‘squash’ which is an Indian 
kind of pompion that grows apace;” ‘‘Beverley (History of Vir- 
ginia, 124) describes the Macocks as ‘a sort of Melopepones, or 
lesser sort of Pompion or Cashaw’ squash, or Squouter- squash, 
which is their name among the northern (i.e. New England) In- 
dians.” According to Alphonse de Candolle in “Origin of Cultivated 
Plants, 1892,” the pumpkins cultivated by the Romans and in the 
middle ages were Cur cur bit a maxima, and those of the natives of 
North America, seen by different travelers in the seventeenth 
century, were Cucurbita Pepo. 
ORIGIN OF SPBCIBS 
Dr. Asa Gray in American Journal of Science and Arts, Second 
Series, Vol. ^:440-443; 1857, states “Dr. Harris has become 
satisfied that the North American Indians as far north even as 
Canada, cultivated squashes and pumpkins, one or both, along 
with the maize, before the whites were established here.” Ac- 
cording to Nuttall, the Indians along the whole upper Missouri 
half a century ago were cultivating Cucurbita verrucosa. This 
common squash is, according to Naudin, a variety of C. Pepo, 
as also is C. aurantia (the C. texana vel. ovifera, Gray. PI. Eindh.) 
which has every appearance of being indigenous in the western 
part of Texas, on the Rio Colorado and its upper tributaries. 
At least, this is the opinion of Mr. Lindheimer and of Mr. Charles 
Wright. 
