Tum pueros eadem fluviis innare docebit.”
Pliny[1233] speaks of a Cucurbitacea, of which vessels and flasks for wine were made, which can only apply to this species.
It does not appear that the Arabs were early acquainted with it, for Ibn Alawâm and Ibn Baithar say nothing of it.[1234] Commentators of Hebrew works attribute no name to this species with certainty, and yet the climate of Palestine is such as to popularize the use of gourds had they been known. From this it seems to me doubtful that the ancient Egyptians possessed this plant, in spite of a single figure of leaves observed on a tomb which has been sometimes identified with it.[1235] Alexander Braun, Ascherson, and Magnus, in their learned paper on the Egyptian remains of plants in the Berlin Museum,[1236] indicate several Cucurbitaceæ without mentioning this one. The earliest modern travellers, such as Rauwolf,[1237] in 1574, saw it in the gardens of Syria, and the so-called pilgrim’s gourd, figured in 1539 by Brunfels, was probably known in the Holy Land from the Middle Ages.
All the botanists of the sixteenth century give illustrations of this species, which was more generally cultivated in Europe at that time than it is now. The common name in these older writings is Cameraria, and three kinds of fruit are distinguished. From the white colour of the flower, which is always mentioned, there can be no doubt of the species. I also note an illustration, certainly a very indifferent one, in which the flower is wanting, but with an exact representation of the fruit of the pilgrim’s gourd, which has the great interest of having appeared before the discovery of America. It is pl. 216 of Herbarius Pataviæ Impressus, in 4to, 1485—a rare work.
In spite of the use of similar names by some authors, I do not believe that the gourd existed in America before the arrival of the Europeans. The Taquera of Piso[1238] and Cucurbita lagenæforma of Marcgraf[1239] are perhaps Lagenaria vulgaris as monographs say,[1240] and the specimens from Brazil which they mention should be certain, but that does not prove that the species was in the country before the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci in 1504. From that time until the voyages of these two botanists in 1637 and 1638, a much longer time elapsed than is needed to account for the introduction and diffusion of an annual species of a curious form, easy of cultivation, and of which the seeds long retain the faculty of germination. It may have become naturalized from cultivation, as has taken place elsewhere. It is still more likely that Cucurbita siceratia, Molina, attributed sometimes to the species under consideration, sometimes to Cucurbita maxima,[1241] may have been introduced into Chili between 1538, the date of the discovery of that country, and 1787, the date of the Italian edition of Molina. Acosta[1242] also speaks of calabashes which the Peruvians used as cups and vases, but the Spanish edition of his book appeared in 1591, more than a hundred years after the Conquest. Among the first naturalists to mention the species after the discovery of America (1492) is Oviedo,[1243] who had visited the mainland, and, after dwelling at Vera Paz, came back to Europe in 1515, but returned to Nicaragua in 1539.[1244] According to Ramusio’s compilation[1245] he spoke of zueche, freely cultivated in the West India Islands and Nicaragua at the time of the discovery of America, and used as bottles. The authors of the floras of Jamaica in the seventeenth century say that the species was cultivated in that island. P. Brown,[1246] however, mentions a large cultivated gourd, and a smaller one with a bitter and purgative pulp, which was found wild.
Lastly, Elliott[1247] writes as follows, in 1824, in a work on the Southern States of America: “L. vulgaris is rarely found in the woods, and is certainly not indigenous. It seems to have been brought by the early inhabitants of our country from a warmer climate. The species has now become wild near dwellings, especially in islands.” The expression, “inhabitants of our country,” seems to refer rather to the colonists than to the natives. Between the discovery of Virginia by Cabot in 1497, or the travels of Raleigh in 1584, and the floras of modern botanists, more than two centuries elapsed, and the natives would have had time to extend the cultivation of the species if they had received it from Europeans. But the fact of its cultivation by Indians at the time of the earliest dealings with them is doubtful. Torrey and Gray[1248] mentioned it as certain in their flora published in 1830-40, and later the second of these able botanists,[1249] in an article on the Cucurbitaceæ known to the natives, does not mention the calabash, or Lagenaria. I remark the same omission in another special article on the same subject, published more recently.[1250]
[In the learned articles by Messrs. Asa Gray and Trumbull on the present volume (American Journal of Science, 1883, p. 370), they give reasons for supposing the species known and indigenous in America previous to the arrival of the Europeans. Early travellers are quoted more in detail than I had done. From their testimony it appears that the inhabitants of Peru, Brazil, and of Paria possessed gourds, in Spanish calabazas, but I do not see that this proves that this was the species called by botanists Cucurbita lagmaria. The only character independent of the exceedingly variable form of the fruit is the white colour of the flowers, and this character is not mentioned.—Author’s Note, 1884.]
Gourd—Cucurbita maxima, Duchesne.
In enumerating the species of the genus Cucurbita, I should explain that their distinction, formerly exceedingly difficult, has been established by M. Naudin[1251] in a very scientific manner, by means of an assiduous cultivation of varieties and of experiments upon their crossed fertilization. Those groups of forms which cannot fertilize each other, or of which the product is not fertile and stable, are regarded by him as species, and the forms which can be crossed and yield a fertile and varied product, as races, breeds, or varieties. Later experiments[1252] showed him that the establishment of species on this basis is not without exceptions, but in the genus Cucurbita physiological facts agree with exterior differences. M. Naudin has established the true distinctive characters of C. maxima and C. Pepo. The leaves of the first have rounded lobes, the peduncles are smooth and the lobes of the corolla are curved outwards; the second has leaves with pointed lobes, the peduncles marked with ridges and furrows, the corolla narrowed towards the base and with lobes nearly always upright.
The principal varieties of Cucurbita maxima are the great yellow gourd, which sometimes attains to an enormous size,[1253] the Spanish gourd, the turban gourd, etc.