Use.—The fruit, while still young and tender, is sometimes pickled in vinegar, like cucumbers. At maturity, the flesh is worthless: but the shells, which are very hard, light, and comparatively strong, are used as substitutes for baskets; and are also formed into water-dippers, and various other articles both useful and ornamental. The varieties are as follow:—
Bottle Gourd. Vil.
Fruit about a foot in length, contracted at the middle, largest at the blossom-end, but swollen also at the part next the stem.
There is a sub-variety, very much larger; but it is also later.
Hercules Club.
Courge Massue d'Hercule. Vil.
Fruit very long. Specimens are frequently produced measuring upwards of five feet in length. It is smallest towards the stem, and increases gradually in size towards the opposite extremity, which is rounded, and near which, in its largest diameter, it measures from four to five inches. Its form is quite peculiar, and is not unlike that of a massive club: whence the name.
It is frequently seen at horticultural and agricultural shows; and, though sometimes exhibited as a "cucumber," has little or no value as an esculent, and must be considered much more curious than useful. It is of a pea-green color while growing, and the skin is then quite soft and tender; but, like the other varieties, the surface becomes smooth, and the skin very hard and shell-like, at maturity.
Powder-Horn.
Courge Poire à Poudre. Vil.