New Yoke Agricultural Experiment Station. 
243 
SQUASH AND PUMPKIN. 
As used in this country, the names squash and pumpkin appear to 
have little, if any, reference to botanical distinctions in the cucur- 
bits to which they are applied. In general terms, a cucurbit grown 
for table use is a squash, and one grown for stock is a pumpkin, but 
both words are sometimes ajDplied to the same fruit by different 
observers. Evidently, then, no classification based upon botanical 
characters can separate the so-called pumpkins and squashes. 
Botanists refer the numerous cultivated varieties of these cucurbits 
to three species, viz., Cucurbita maxima, Duch. ; C. moschata, Duch, 
and C. Pepo, L. In this article, the varieties are first referred to 
their proper botanical species, after which they are classified with 
reference to the more conspicuous characters of the fruit. The 
descriptions of the species are taken from the contribution by Alfred 
Cogniaux to DeCandolle's Monograph of the Phanerogams, Vol. 3, 
pp. 544^-546. 
1. Cucurbita maxima, (Cogn.) Leaves harsh, with five rounded lobes, 
almost without sinuses between ; hairs of the petioles stiff, but never 
pungent; peduncles terete; calyx tube of the male flowers ob-conical, 
never constricted beneath the insertion of the corolla, segments linear or 
thread-form ; fruit-bearing peduncle thick, corky, striate, but never truly 
sulcate. 
Stem sub-terete, trailing, elongated, [rarely quite short], leaves more or 
less reniform ; corolla campanulate, intense yellow with reflex lobes ; fruit- 
bearing peduncle cylindrical or club-shaped ; fruit often very large, pulp 
scarcely fibrous, placentae spongy, not readily deliquescent ; seeds ovate, 
scarcely margined, white or yellow. 
2. C. Pepo, (Cogn.) Leaves harsh, with five lobes which are acute and 
often lobulate ; sinuses usually deep, acute or rounded ; hairs of the petioles 
and of the nerves on the under side of the leaves rather stiff, often pungent ; 
peduncles of the flowers obtusely pentagonal; calyx tube of the male 
flowers campanulate, constricted beneath the insertion of the corolla, the 
segments fleshy or corky ; fruit-bearing peduncle often woody, polyhedral, 
sulcate, little expanded at its union with the fruit. 
Stem long-creeping, or rarely short, angular, sulcate ; leaves sometimes 
marbled with ashy white ; calyx tube obscurely five-angled ; corolla golden 
yellow ; lobes reflexed or erect ; fruit extremely variable, blackish green, 
golden yellow, yellow, or white or versicolor, ribbed or not ribbed, smooth 
or warty, small or large, often obovoid; pulp fibrous, placentae readily 
deliquescent ; seeds distinctly margined, broadly or narrowly ovate. 
3. C. moschata, (Cogn.) Leaves soft, with five or six acute or rarely 
obtuse lobes, with acute sinuses between, [in our cultivated varieties 
more often not cut, but presenting more or less distinct angles ] ; hairs 
of the petioles and nerves never pungent; peduncles of male flowers 
sub-terete, or terete, of female ones pentagonal; calyx tube of male 
flowers short or wanting; segments flat, linear, apex usually dilated, 
