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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voi,. XXIX, 1922 
According to George Don, in General System of Gardening and 
Botany, Vol. 3 : 40, 1834, the native country of C. maxima is un- 
known, that of C. moschata is Martinique and that of C. Pepo is 
the Levant. 
Origin of Pumpkins and Squashes according to L. Wittmack, 
* Die Heimat der Bohnen und Kiirbisse ; Bericht. Deut. Bot. 
Gesell. 6 :374-380, 1888. Favors the American origin. 
Naudin believes that all species of Cucurbita, e.g. C. Pepo, 
C. maxima and C. moschata, originated in the old world. He says 
in his “Nouvelles Rec.herches” that C. Pepo most likely was known 
to the Greeks and the Romans. The other two are more modern, 
as their introduction into European gardens does not date back 
over two hundred years. 
Alphonse de Candolle in his “Origine des plantes cultivees,” 
p. 199, says the native country of C. Pepo is America, while on 
the other hand he believes that C. maxima is a native of the old 
world. 
Among other objects Wittmack found seeds of normal size of 
C. maxima and C. moschata in old Peruvian tombs. Naudin 
himself identified some of the smaller seeds as belonging to C. 
moschata. On that account it seems clear that these two species 
are of American origin. 
In the tombs of the old world no pumpkin or squash seeds 
have ever been found. 
No descriptions of any species of Cucurbitaceae written before 
the discovery of America are in existence; not until the 16th 
century are such descriptions found. Asa Gray and Hammond 
Trumbull have tried to prove that the pumpkin was in existence 
in North America before Europeans entered the continent. 
Gray and Trumbull in Am. Jour, of Sci. 23 : 370-379, 1883, 
3rd series, state that in the Geographie Botanique not one of the 
cultivated cucurbits is attributed to America, and a reference to 
Nuttall’s record that the warted squash was grown by the Indians 
on the upper Missouri is the only mention of any aboriginal cul- 
tivation of squashes in North America. 
Yet we find abundant evidence, especially as respects North 
America — ■ (1) that in various parts of the country, remote from 
each other, the cultivation of one or more species of cucurbits by 
the Indians was established before those places are known to 
have been visited by Europeans ; (2) that these species or varieties 
were novel to Europeans, and were regarded by botanists of the 
