Chapter IV: Plants Cultivated for Their Fruits.816 (3)

It is difficult, from all these facts, not to admit the Chinese origin of the common peach, as I had formerly inferred from more scanty data. Its arrival in Italy at the beginning of the Christian era is now confirmed by the absence of peach stones in the _terra-mare_ or lake-dwellings of Parma and Lombardy, and by the representations of the peach tree in the paintings on the walls of the richer houses in Pompeii.[1138]

I have yet to deal with an opinion formerly expressed by Knight, and supported by several horticulturists, that the peach is a modification of the almond. Darwin[1139] collected facts in support of this idea, not omitting to mention one which seems opposed to it. They may be concisely put as follows:—(1) Crossed fertilization, which presented Knight with somewhat doubtful results; (2) intermediate forms, as to the fleshiness of the fruit and the size of the nut or stone, obtained by sowing peach stones, or by chance in plantations, forms of which the almond-peach is an example which has long been known. Decaisne[1140] pointed out differences between the almond and peach in the size and length of the leaves independently of the fruit. He calls Knight’s theory a “strange hypothesis.”

Geographical botany opposes his hypothesis, for the almond tree has its origin in Western Asia; it was not indigenous in the centre of the Asiatic continent, and its introduction into China as a cultivated species was not anterior to the Christian era. The Chinese, however, had already possessed for thousands of years different varieties of the common peach besides the two wild forms I have just mentioned. The almond and the peach, starting from two such widely separated regions, can hardly be considered as the same species. The one was established in China, the other in Syria and in Anatolia. The peach, after being transported from China into Central Asia, and a little before the Christian era into Western Asia, cannot, therefore, have produced the almond, since the latter existed already in Syria. And if the almond of Western Asia had produced the peach, how could the latter have existed in China at a very remote period while it was not known to the Greeks and Latins?

+Pear+—_Pyrus communis_, Linnæus.

The pear grows wild over the whole of temperate Europe and Western Asia, particularly in Anatolia, to the south of the Caucasus and in the north of Persia,[1141] perhaps even in Kashmir,[1142] but this is very doubtful. Some authors hold that its area extends as far as China. This opinion is due to the fact that they regard _Pyrus sinensis_, Lindley, as belonging to the same species. An examination of the leaves alone, of which the teeth are covered with a fine silky down, convinced me of the specific difference of the two trees.[1143]

Our wild pear does not differ much from some of the cultivated varieties. Its fruit is sour, spotted, and narrowing towards the stalk, or nearly spherical on the same tree.[1144] With many other cultivated species, it is hard to distinguish the individuals of wild origin from those which the chance transport of seeds has produced at a distance from dwellings. In the present case it is not difficult. Pear trees are often found in woods, and they attain to a considerable height, with all the conditions of fertility of an indigenous plant.[1145] Let us examine, however, whether in the wide area they occupy a less ancient existence may be suspected in some countries than in others.

No Sanskrit name for the pear is known, whence it may be concluded that its cultivation is of no long standing in the north-west of India, and that the indication, which is moreover very vague, of wild trees in Kashmir is of no importance. Neither are there any Hebrew or Aramaic names,[1146] but this is explained by the fact that the pear does not flourish in the hot countries in which these tongues were spoken.

Homer, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides mention the pear tree under the names _ochnai_, _apios_, or _achras_. The Latins called it _pyrus_ or _pirus_,[1147] and cultivated a great number of varieties, at least in Pliny’s time. The mural paintings at Pompeii frequently represent the tree with its fruit.[1148]

The lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy gathered wild apples in great quantities, and among their stores pears are sometimes, but rarely, found. Heer has given an illustration of one which cannot be mistaken, found at Wangen or Robenhausen. It is a fruit narrowing towards the stalk, 28 mm. (about an inch and a half) long by 19 mm. (an inch) wide, cut longitudinally so as to show the small quantity of pulp as compared to the cartilaginous central part.[1149] None have been found in the lake-dwellings of Bourget in Savoy. In those of Lombardy, Professor Raggazzoni[1150] found a pear cut lengthways, 25 mm. by 16. This was at Bardello, Lago di Varese. The wild pears figured in Duhamel, _Traité des Arbres_, edit. 2, are 30 to 33 by 30 to 32 mm.; and those of Laristan, figured in the _Jardin Fruitier du Muséum_ under the name _P. balansæ_, which seem to me to be of the same species, and undoubtedly wild, are 26 to 27 mm. by 24 to 25. In modern wild pears the fleshy part is a little thicker, but the ancient lake-dwellers dried their fruits after cutting them lengthways, which must have caused them to shrink a little. No knowledge of metals or of hemp is shown in the settlements where these were found; but, considering their distance from the more civilized centres of antiquity, especially in the case of Switzerland, it is possible that these remains are not more ancient than the Trojan war, or than the foundation of Rome.

I have mentioned three Greek and one Roman name, but there are many others; for instance, _pauta_ in Armenian and Georgian; _vatzkor_ in Hungarian; in Slav languages _gruscha_ (Russian), _hrusska_ (Bohemian), _kruska_ (Illyrian). Names similar to the Latin _pyrus_ recur in the Keltic languages; _peir_ in Erse, _per_ in Kymric and Armorican.[1151] I leave philologists to conjecture the Aryan origin of some of these names, and of the German _Birn_; I merely note their number and diversity as an indication of the very ancient existence of the species from the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic. The Aryans certainly did not carry pears nor pear pips with them in their wanderings westward; but if they found in Europe a fruit they knew, they would have given it the name or names they were accustomed to use, while other earlier names may have survived in some countries. As an example of the latter case, I may mention two Basque names, _udarea_ and _madaria_,[1152] which have no analogy with any known European or Asiatic name. The Basques being probably the descendants of the conquered Iberians who were driven back to the Pyrenees by the Kelts, the antiquity of their language is very great, and it is clear that their names for the species in question were not derived from Keltic or Latin.

The modern area of the pear extending from the north of Persia to the western coast of temperate Europe, principally in mountainous regions, may therefore be considered as prehistoric, and anterior to all cultivation. It must be added, however, that in the north of Europe and in the British Isles an extensive cultivation must have extended and multiplied naturalizations in comparatively modern times which can scarcely be now distinguished.

I cannot accept Godron’s hypothesis that the numerous cultivated varieties come from an unknown Asiatic species.[1153] It seems that they may be ranked, as Decaisne says, either with _P. communis_ or _P. nivalis_ of which I am about to speak, taking into account the effect of accidental crossing, of cultivation, and of long-continued selection. Besides, Western Asia has been explored so thoroughly that it is probable it contains no other species than those already described.

+Snow Pear+—_Pyrus nivalis_, Jacquin.

This variety of pear is cultivated in Austria, in the north of Italy, and in several departments of the east and centre of France. It was named _Pyrus nivalis_ by Jacquin[1154] from the German name _Schneebirne_, given to it because the Austrian peasants eat the fruit when the snow is on the ground. It is called in France _Poirier sauger_, because the under side of the leaves is covered with a white down which makes them like the sage (Fr. _sauge_). Decaisne[1155] considered all the varieties of _P. nivalis_ to be derived from _P. kotschyana_, Boissier,[1156] which grows wild in Asia Minor. The latter in this case should take the name of _nivalis_, which is the older.

The snowy pears cultivated in France to make the drink called perry have become wild in the woods here and there.[1157] They constitute the greater number of the so-called “cider pears,” which are distinguished by the sour taste of the fruit independent of the character of the leaf. The descriptions of the Greeks and Romans are too imperfect for us to be certain if they possessed this species. It may be presumed that they did, however, since they made cider.[1158]

+Sandy Pear+, +Chinese Pear+—_Pyrus sinensis_, Lindley.[1159]

I have already mentioned this species, which is nearly allied to the common pear. It is wild in Mongolia and Mantchuria,[1160] and cultivated in China and Japan. Its fruit, large rather than good, is used for preserving. It has also been recently introduced into European gardens for experiments in crossing it with our species. This will very likely take place naturally.

+Apple+—_Pyrus Malus_, Linnæus.

The apple tree grows wild throughout Europe (excepting in the extreme north), in Anatolia, the south of the Caucasus, and the Persian province of Ghilan.[1161] Near Trebizond, the botanist Bourgeau saw quite a small forest of them.[1162] In the mountains of the north-west of India it is “apparently wild,” as Sir Joseph Hooker writes in his _Flora of British India_. No author mentions it as growing in Siberia, in Mongolia, or in Japan.[1163]

There are two varieties wild in Germany, the one with glabrous leaves and ovaries, the other with leaves downy on the under side, and Koch adds that this down varies considerably.[1164] In France accurate authors also give two wild varieties, but with characters which do not tally exactly with those of the German flora.[1165] It would be easy to account for this difference if the wild trees in certain districts spring from cultivated varieties whose seeds have been accidentally dispersed. The question is, therefore, to discover to what degree the species is probably ancient and indigenous in different countries, and, if it is not more ancient in one country than another, how it was gradually extended by the accidental sowing of forms changed by the crossing of varieties and by cultivation.

The country in which the apple appears to be most indigenous is the region lying between Trebizond and Ghilan. The variety which there grows wild has leaves downy on the under side, short peduncles, and sweet fruit,[1166] like _Malus communis_ of France, described by Boreau. This indicates that its prehistoric area extended from the Caspian Sea nearly to Europe.

Piddington gives in his _Index_ a Sanskrit name for the apple, but Adolphe Pictet[1167] informs us that this name _seba_ is Hindustani, and comes from the Persian _sêb_, _sêf_. The absence of an earlier name in India argues that the now common cultivation of the apple in Kashmir and Thibet, and especially that in the north-west and central provinces of India, is not very ancient. The tree was probably known only to the western Aryans.

This people had in all probability a name of which the root was _ab_, _af_, _av_, _ob_, as this root recurs in several European names of Aryan origin. Pictet gives _aball_, _ubhall_, in Erse; _afal_ in Kymric; _aval_ in Armorican; _aphal_ in old High German; _appel_ in old English; _apli_ in Scandinavian; _obolys_ in Lithuanian; _iabluko_ in ancient Slav; _iabloko_ in Russian. It would appear from this that the western Aryans, finding the apple wild or already naturalized in the north of Europe, kept the name under which they had known it. The Greeks had _mailea_ or _maila_, the Latins _malus_, _malum_, words whose origin, according to Pictet, is very uncertain. The Albanians, descendants of the Pelasgians, have _molé_.[1168] Theophrastus[1169] mentions wild and cultivated _maila_. Lastly, the Basques (ancient Iberians) have an entirely different name, _sagara_, which implies an existence in Europe prior to the Aryan invasions.

The inhabitants of the _terra-mare_ of Parma, and of the palafittes of the lakes of Lombardy, Savoy, and Switzerland, made great use of apples. They always cut them lengthways, and preserved them dried as a provision for the winter. The specimens are often carbonized by fire, but the internal structure of the fruit is only the more clearly to be distinguished. Heer,[1170] who has shown great penetration in observing these details, distinguishes two varieties of the apple known to the inhabitants of the lake-dwellings before they possessed metals. The smaller kind are 15 to 24 mm. in their longitudinal diameter, and about 3 mm. more across (in their dried and carbonized state); the larger, 29 to 32 mm. lengthways by 36 wide (dried, but not carbonized). The latter corresponds to an apple of German-Swiss orchards, now called _campaner_. The English wild apple, figured in _English Botany_, pl. 179, is 17 mm. long by 22 wide. It is possible that the little apples of the lake-dwellings were wild; however, their abundance in the stores makes it doubtful. Dr. Gross sent me two apples from the more recent palafittes of Lake Neuchâtel; the one is 17 the other 22 mm. in longitudinal diameter. At Lagozza, in Lombardy, Sordelli[1171] mentions two apples, the one 17 mm. by 19, the other 19 mm. by 27. In a prehistoric deposit of Lago Varese, at Bardello, Ragazzoni found an apple in the stores a little larger than the others.

From all these facts, I consider the apple to have existed in Europe, both wild and cultivated, from prehistoric times. The lack of communication with Asia before the Aryan invasion makes it probable that the tree was indigenous in Europe as in Anatolia, the south of the Caucasus, and Northern Russia, and that its cultivation began early everywhere.

+Quince+—_Cydonia vulgaris_, Persoon.

The quince grows wild in the woods in the north of Persia, near the Caspian Sea, in the region to the south of the Caucasus, and in Anatolia.[1172] A few botanists have also found it apparently wild in the Crimea, and in the north of Greece;[1173] but naturalization may be suspected even in the east of Europe, and the further we advance towards Italy, especially towards the south-west of Europe and Algeria, the more it becomes probable that the species was naturalized at an early period round villages, in hedges, etc.

No Sanskrit name is known for the quince, whence it may be inferred that its area did not extend towards the centre of Asia. Neither is there any Hebrew name, though the species is wild upon Mount Taurus.[1174] The Persian name is _haivah_,[1175] but I do not know whether it is as old as Zend. The same name, _aiva_, exists in Russian for the cultivated quince, while the name of the wild plant is _armud_, from the Armenian _armuda_.[1176] The Greeks grafted upon a common variety, _strution_, a superior kind, which came from Cydon, in Crete, whence κυδωνιον, translated by the Latin _malum cotoneum_, by _cydonia_, and all the European names, such as _codogno_ in Italian, _coudougner_, and later _coing_ in French, _quitte_ in German, etc. There are Polish, _pigwa_, Slav, _tunja_,[1177] and Albanian (Pelasgian?), _ftua_,[1178] names which differ entirely from the others. This variety of names points to an ancient knowledge of the species to the west of its original country, and the Albanian name may even indicate an existence prior to the Hellenes.

Its antiquity in Greece may also be gathered from the superstition, mentioned by Pliny and Plutarch, that the fruit of the quince was a preservation from evil influences, and from its entrance into the marriage rites prescribed by Solon. Some authors go so far as to maintain that the apple disputed by Hera, Aphrodite, and Athene was a quince. Those who are interested in such questions will find details in Comes’s paper on the plants represented in the frescoes at Pompeii.[1179] The quince tree is figured twice in these, which is not surprising, as the tree was known in Cato’s time.[1180]

It seems to me probable that it was naturalized in the east of Europe before the epoch of the Trojan war. The quince is a fruit which has been little modified by cultivation; it is as harsh and acid when fresh as in the time of the ancient Greeks.

+Pomegranate+—_Punica granatum_, Linnæus.

The pomegranate grows wild in stony ground in Persia, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and Beluchistan.[1181] Burnes saw groves of it in Mazanderan, to the south of the Caspian Sea.[1182] It appears equally wild to the south of the Caucasus.[1183] Westwards, that is to say, in Asia Minor, in Greece, and in the Mediterranean basin generally, in the north of Africa and in Madeira, the species appears rather to have become naturalized from cultivation, and by the dispersal of the seeds by birds. Many floras of the south of Europe speak of it as a “subspontaneous” or naturalized species. Desfontaines, in his _Atlantic Flora_, gives it as wild in Algeria, but subsequent authors think[1184] rather it is naturalized.[1185] I doubt its being wild in Beluchistan, where the traveller Stocks found it, for Anglo-Indian botanists do not allow it to be indigenous east of the Indus, and I note the absence of the species in the collections from Lebanon and Syria which Boissier is always careful to quote.

In China the pomegranate exists only as a cultivated plant. It was introduced from Samarkhand by Chang-Kien, a century and a half before the Christian era.[1186]

The naturalization in the Mediterranean basin is so general that it may be termed an extension of the original area. It probably dates from a very remote period, for the cultivation of the species dates from a very early epoch in Western Asia.

Let us see whether historical and philological data can give us any information on this head.

I note the existence of a Sanskrit name, _darimba_, whence several modern Indian names are derived.[1187] Hence we may conclude that the species had long been known in the regions traversed by the Aryans in their route towards India. The pomegranate is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, under the name of _rimmon_,[1188] whence the Arabic _rumman_ or _rûman_. It was one of the fruit trees of the promised land, and the Hebrews had learnt to appreciate it in Egyptian gardens. Many localities in Palestine took their name from this shrub, but the Scriptures only mention it as a cultivated species. The flower and the fruit figured in the religious rites of the Phœnicians, and the goddess Aphrodite had herself planted it in the isle of Cyprus,[1189] which implies that it was not indigenous there. The Greeks were acquainted with the species in the time of Homer. It is twice mentioned in the _Odyssey_ as a tree in the gardens of Phæacia and Phrygia. They called it _roia_ or _roa_, which philologists believe to be derived from the Syrian and Hebrew name,[1190] and also _sidai_,[1191] which seems to be Pelasgic, for the modern Albanian name is _sige_.[1192] There is nothing to show that the species was wild in Greece, where Fraas and Heldreich affirm that it is now only naturalized.[1193]

The pomegranate enters into the myths and religious ceremonies of the ancient Romans.[1194] Cato speaks of its properties as a vermifuge. According to Pliny,[1195] the best pomegranates came from Carthage, hence the name _Malum punicum_; but it should not be supposed, as it has been assumed, that the species came originally from Northern Africa. Very probably the Phœnicians had introduced it at Carthage long before the Romans had anything to do with this town, and it was doubtless cultivated as in Egypt.

If the pomegranate had formerly been wild in Northern Africa and the south of Europe, the Latins would have had more original names for it than _granatum_ (from _granum?_) and _Malum punicum_. We should have perhaps found local names derived from ancient Western tongues; whereas the Semitic name _rimmon_ has prevailed in Greek and in Arabic, and even occurs, through Arab influence, among the Berbers.[1196] It must be admitted that the African origin is one of the errors caused by the erroneous popular nomenclature of the Romans.

Leaves and flowers of a pomegranate, described by Saporta[1197] as a variety of the modern _Punica granatum_, have been discovered in the pliocene strata of the environs of Meximieux. The species, therefore, existed under this form, before our epoch, along with several species, some extinct, others still existing in the south of Europe, and others in the Canaries, but the continuity of existence down to our own day is not thereby proved.

To conclude, botanical, historical, and philological data agree in showing that the modern species is a native of Persia and some adjacent countries. Its cultivation began in prehistoric time, and its early extension, first towards the west and afterwards into China, has caused its naturalization in cases which may give rise to errors as to its true origin, for they are frequent, ancient, and enduring. I arrived at these conclusions in 1869,[1198] which has not prevented the repetition of the erroneous African origin in several works.

+Rose Apple+—_Eugenia Jambos_, Linnæus; _Jambosa vulgaris_, de Candolle.

This small tree belongs to the family of Myrtaceæ. It is cultivated in tropical regions of the old and new worlds, as much perhaps for the beauty of its foliage as for its fruit, of which the rose-scented pulp is too scanty. There is an excellent illustration and a good description of it in the _Botanical Magazine_, pl. 3356. The seed is poisonous.[1199]

As the cultivation of this species is of ancient date in Asia, there was no doubt of its Asiatic origin; but the locality in which it grew wild was formerly unknown. Loureiro’s assertion that it grew in Cochin-China and some parts of India required confirmation, which has been afforded by some modern writers.[1200] The _jambos_ is wild in Sumatra, and elsewhere in the islands of the Malay Archipelago. Kurz did not meet with it in the forests of British Burmah, but when Rheede saw this tree in gardens in Malabar he noticed that it was called _Malacca-schambu_, which shows that it came originally from the Malay Peninsula. Lastly, Brandis says it is wild in Sikkim, to the north of Bengal. Its natural area probably extends from the islands of the Malay Archipelago to Cochin-China, and even to the north-east of India, where, however, it is probably naturalized from cultivation and by the agency of birds. Naturalization has also taken place elsewhere—at Hongkong, for instance, in the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Rodriguez, and in several of the West India Islands.[1201]

+Malay Apple+—_Eugenia malaccensis_, Linnæus; _Jambosa malaccensis_, de Candolle.

A species allied to _Eugenia jambos_, but differing from it in the arrangement of its flowers, and in its fruit, of an obovoid instead of ovoid form; that is to say, the smaller end is attached to the stalk. The fruit is more fleshy and is also rose-scented, but it is much[1202] or little[1203] esteemed according to the country and varieties. These are numerous, differing in the red or pink colour of the flowers, and in the size, shape, and colour of the fruit.

The numerous varieties show an ancient cultivation in the Malay Archipelago, where the species is indigenous. In confirmation, it must be noted that Forster found it established in the Pacific Islands, from Otahiti to the Sandwich Isles, at the time of Cook’s voyages.[1204] The Malay apple grows wild in the forests of the Malay Archipelago, and in the peninsula of Malacca.[1205]

Tussac says that it was brought to Jamaica from Otahiti in 1793. It has spread and become naturalized in several of the West India Islands, also in Mauritius and the Seychelles.[1206]

+Guava+—_Psidium guayava_, Raddi.

Ancient authors, Linnæus, and some later botanists, admitted two species of this fruit tree of the family of Myrtaceæ, the one with elliptical or spherical fruit, with red flesh, _Psidium pomiferum_; the other with a pyriform fruit and white or pink flesh, more agreeable to the taste. Such diversity is also observed in pears, apples, or peaches; so it was decided to consider all the Psidii as forming a single species. Raddi saw a proof that there was no essential difference, for he observed pyriform and round fruits growing on the same tree in Brazil.[1207] The majority of botanists, especially those who have observed the guava in the colonies, follow the opinion of Raddi,[1208] to which I was inclined, even in 1855, from reasons drawn from the geographical distribution.[1209]

Lowe,[1210] in his _Flora of Madeira_, maintains with some hesitation the distinction into two species, and asserts that each can be raised from seed. They are, therefore, races like those of our domestic animals, and of many cultivated plants. Each of these races comprehends several varieties.[1211]

The study of the origin of the guava presents in the highest degree the difficulty which exists in the case of many fruit trees of this nature: their fleshy and somewhat aromatic fruits attract omnivorous animals which cast their seeds in places far from cultivation. Those of the guava germinate rapidly, and fructify in the third or fourth year. Its area has thus spread, and is still spreading by naturalization, principally in those tropical countries which are neither very hot nor very damp.

In order to simplify the search after the origin of the species, I may begin by eliminating the old world, for it is sufficiently evident that the guava came from America. Out of sixty species of the genus Psidium, all those which have been carefully studied are American. It is true that botanists from the sixteenth century have found plants of _Psidium guayava_ (varieties _pomiferum_ and _pyriferum_) more or less wild in the Malay Archipelago and the south of Asia,[1212] but everything tends to show that these were the result of recent naturalization. In each locality a foreign origin was admitted; the only doubt was whether this origin was Asiatic or American. Other considerations justify this idea. The common names in Malay are derived from the American word _guiava_. Ancient Chinese authors do not mention the guava, though Loureiro said a century and a half ago that they were growing wild in Cochin-China. Forster does not mention them among the cultivated plants of the Pacific Isles at the time of Cook’s voyage, which is significant when we consider how easy this plant is to cultivate and its ready dispersion. In Mauritius and the Seychelles there is no doubt of their recent introduction and naturalization.[1213]

It is more difficult to discover from what part of America the guava originally came. In the present century it is undoubtedly wild in the West Indies, in Mexico, in Central America, Venezuela, Peru, Guiana, and Brazil.[1214] But whether this is only since Europeans extended its cultivation, or whether it was previously diffused by the agency of the natives and of birds, seems to be no more certain than when I spoke on the subject in 1855.[1215] Now, however, with a little more experience in questions of this nature, and since the specific unity of the two varieties of guava is recognized, I shall endeavour to show what seems most probable.

J. Acosta,[1216] one of the earliest authors on the natural history of the new world, expresses himself as follows, about the spherical variety of the guava: “There are mountains in San Domingo and the other islands entirely covered with guavas, and the natives say that there were no such trees in the islands before the arrival of the Spaniards, who brought them, I know not whence.” The mainland seems, therefore, to have been the original home of the species. Acosta says that it grows in South America, adding that the Peruvian guavas have a white flesh superior to that of the red fruit. This argues an ancient cultivation on the mainland. Hernandez[1217] saw both varieties wild in Mexico in the warm regions of the plains and mountains near Quauhnaci. He gives a description and a fair drawing of _P. pomiferum_. Piso and Marcgraf[1218] also found the two guavas wild in the plains of Brazil; but they remark that it spreads readily. Marcgraf says that they were believed to be natives of Peru or of North America, by which he may mean the West Indies or Mexico. Evidently the species was wild in a great part of the continent at the time of the discovery of America. If the area was at one time more restricted, it must have been at a far more remote epoch.

Different common names were given by the different native races. In Mexico it was _xalxocotl_; in Brazil the tree was called _araca-iba_, the fruit _araca guacu_; lastly, the name _guajavos_, or _guajava_, is quoted by Acosta and Hernandez for the guavas of Peru and San Domingo without any precise indication of origin. This diversity of names confirms the hypothesis of a very ancient and extended area.

From what ancient travellers say of an origin foreign to San Domingo and Brazil (an assertion, however, which we may be permitted to doubt), I suspect that the most ancient habitation extended from Mexico to Columbia and Peru, possibly including Brazil before the discovery of America, and the West Indies after that event. In its earliest state, the species bore spherical, highly coloured fruit, harsh to the taste. The other form is perhaps the result of cultivation.

+Gourd+,[1219] or +Calabash+—_Lagenaria vulgaris_, Seringe; _Cucurbita lagenaria_, Linnæus.

The fruit of this _Curcubitacea_ has taken different forms in cultivation, but from a general observation of the other parts of the plant, botanists have ranked them in one species which comprises several varieties.[1220] The most remarkable are the _pilgrim’s gourd_, in the form of a bottle, the _long-necked gourd_, the _trumpet gourd_, and the _calabash_, generally large and without a neck. Other less common varieties have a flattened, very small fruit, like the _snuff-box gourd_. The species may always be recognized by its white flower, and by the hardness of the outer rind of the fruit, which allows of its use as a vessel for liquids, or a reservoir of air suitable as a buoy for novices in swimming. The flesh is sometimes sweet and eatable, sometimes bitter and even purgative.

Linnæus[1221] pronounced the species to be American. De Candolle[1222] thought it was probably of Indian origin, and this opinion has since been confirmed.

_Lagenaria vulgaris_ has been found wild on the coast of Malabar and in the humid forests of Deyra Doon.[1223] Roxburgh[1224] considered it to be wild in India, although subsequent floras give it only as a cultivated species. Lastly, Rumphius[1225] mentions wild plants of it on the sea-shore in one of the Moluccas. Authors generally note that the pulp is bitter in these wild plants, but this is sometimes the case in cultivated forms. The Sanskrit language already distinguished the common gourd, _ulavou_, and another, bitter, _kutou-toumbi_, to which Pictet also attributes the name _tiktaka_ or _tiktika_.[1226] Seemann[1227] saw the species cultivated and naturalized in the Fiji Isles. Thozet gathered it on the coast of Queensland,[1228] but it had perhaps spread from neighbouring cultivation. The localities in continental India seem more certain and more numerous than those of the islands to the south of Asia.

The species has also been found wild in Abyssinia, in the valley of Hieha by Dillon, and in the bush and stony ground of another district by Schimper.[1229]

From these two regions of the old world it has been introduced into the gardens of all tropical countries and of those temperate ones where there is a sufficiently high temperature in summer. It has occasionally become naturalized from cultivation, as is seen in America.[1230]

The earliest Chinese work which mentioned the gourd is that of Tchong-tchi-chou, of the first century before Christ, quoted in a work of the fifth or sixth century according to Bretschneider.[1231] He is speaking here of cultivated plants. The modern varieties of the gardens at Pekin are the trumpet gourd, which is eatable, and the bottle gourd.

Greek authors do not mention the plant, but Romans speak of it from the beginning of the empire. It is clearly alluded to in the often-quoted lines[1232] of the tenth book of Columella. After describing the different forms of the fruit, he says—

“Dabit illa capacem,
Nariciæ picis, aut Actæi mellis Hymetti,
Aut habilem lymphis hamulam, Bacchove lagenam,
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.

Since common names and those in ancient authors do not agree with botanical definitions, we must mistrust the assertions formerly put forth on the origin and early cultivation of such and such a gourd at a given epoch in a given country. For this reason, when I considered the subject in 1855, the home of these plants seemed to me either unknown or very doubtful. At the present day it is more easy to investigate the question.

According to Sir Joseph Hooker,[1254] _Cucurbita maxima_ was found by Barter on the banks of the Niger in Guinea, apparently indigenous, and by Welwitsch in Angola without any assertion of its wild character. In works on Abyssinia, Egypt, or other African countries in which the species is commonly cultivated, I find no indication that it is found wild. The Abyssinians used the word _dubba_, which is applied in Arabic to gourds in general.

The plant was long supposed to be of Indian origin, because of such names as Indian gourd, given by sixteenth-century botanists, and in particular the _Pepo maximus indicus_, figured by Lobel,[1255] which answers to the modern species; but this is a very insufficient proof, since popular indications of origin are very often erroneous. The fact is that though pumpkins are cultivated in Southern Asia, as in other parts of the tropics, the plant has not been found wild.[1256] No similar species is indicated by ancient Chinese authors, and the modern names of gourds and pumpkins now grown in China are of foreign and southern origin.[1257] It is impossible to know to what species the Sanskrit name _kurkarou_ belonged, although Roxburgh attributes it to _Cucurbita Pepo_; and there is no less uncertainty with respect to the gourds, pumpkins, and melons cultivated by the Greeks and Romans. It is not certain if the species was known to the ancient Egyptians, but perhaps it was cultivated in that country and in the Græco-Roman world. The _Pepones_, of which Charlemagne commanded the cultivation in his farms,[1258] were perhaps some kind of pumpkin or marrow, but no figure or description of these plants which may be clearly recognized exists earlier than the sixteenth century.

This tends to show its American origin. Its existence in Africa in a wild state is certainly an argument to the contrary, for the species of the family of _Cucurbitaceæ_ are very local; but there are arguments in favour of America, and I must examine them with the more care since I have been reproached in the United States for not having given them sufficient weight.

In the first place, out of the ten known species of the genus _Cucurbita_, six are certainly wild in America (Mexico and California); but these are perennial species, while the cultivated pumpkins are annuals.

The plant called _jurumu_ by the Brazilians, figured by Piso and Marcgraf[1259] is attributed by modern writers to _Cucurbita maxima_. The drawing and the short account by the two authors agree pretty well with this theory, but it seems to have been a cultivated plant. It may have been brought from Europe or from Africa by Europeans, between the discovery of Brazil in 1504, and the travels of the above-named authors in 1637 and 1638. No one has found the species wild in North or South America. I cannot find in works on Brazil, Guiana, or the West Indies any sign of an ancient cultivation or of wild growth, either from names, or from traditions or more or less distinct belief. In the United States those men of science who best know the languages and customs of the natives, Dr. Harris for instance, and more recently Trumbull,[1260] maintain that the _Cucurbitaceæ_ called _squash_ by the Anglo-Americans, and _macock_, or _cashaw_, _cushaw_, by early travellers in Virginia, are _pumpkins_. Trumbull says that _squash_ is an Indian word. I have no reason to doubt the assertion, but neither the ablest linguists, nor the travellers of the seventeenth century, who saw the natives provided with fruits which they called _gourds and pumpkins_, have been able to prove that they were such and such species recognized as distinct by modern botanists. All that we learn from this is that the natives a century after the discovery of Virginia, and twenty to forty years after its colonization by Sir Walter Raleigh, made use of some fruits of the _Cucurbitaceæ_. The common names are still so confused in the United States, that Dr. Asa Gray, in 1868, gives _pumpkin_ and _squash_ as answering to different species of _Cucurbita_,[1261] while Darlington[1262] attributes the name _pumpkin_ to the common _Cucurbita Pepo_, and that of _squash_ to the varieties of the latter which correspond to the forms of _Melopepo_ of early botanists. They attribute no distinct common name to _Cucurbita maxima_.

Finally, without placing implicit faith in the indigenous character of the plant on the banks of the Niger, based upon the assertion of a single traveller, I still believe that the species is a native of the old world, and introduced into America by Europeans.

[The testimony of early travellers touching the existence of _Cucurbita maxima_ in America before the arrival of Europeans has been collected and supplemented by Messrs. Asa Gray and Trumbull (_American Journal of Science_, 1883, p. 372). They confirm the fact already known, that the natives cultivated species of _Cucurbita_ under American names, of which some remain in the modern idiom of the United States. None of these early travellers has noted the botanical characters by which Naudin established the distinction between _C. maxima_ and _C. Pepo_, and consequently it is still doubtful to which species they referred. For various reasons I had already admitted that _C. Pepo_ was of American origin, but I retain my doubts about _C. maxima_. After a more attentive perusal of Tragus and Matthiolo than I had bestowed upon them, Asa Gray and Trumbull notice that they call _Indian_ whatever came from America. But if these two botanists did not confound the East and West Indies, several others, and the public in general, did make this confusion, which occasioned errors touching the origin of species which botanists were liable to repeat. A further indication in favour of the American origin of _C. maxima_ is communicated by M. Wittmack, who informs me that seeds, certified by M. Naudin to belong to this species, have been found in the tombs of Ancon. This would be conclusive if the date of the latest burials at Ancon were certain. See on this head the article on _Phaseolus vulgaris_.—AUTHOR’S NOTE, 1884.]

+Pumpkin+—_Cucurbita Pepo_ and _C. Melopepo_, Linnæus. Modern authors include under the head of _Cucurbita Pepo_ most of the varieties which Linnæus designated by this name, and also those which he called _C. Melopepo_. These varieties are very different as to the shape of the fruit, which shows a very ancient cultivation. There is the Patagonian pumpkin, with enormous cylindrical fruit; the _sugared pumpkin_, called Brazilian; the vegetable marrow, with smaller long-shaped fruit; the _Barberine_, with knobby fruit; the _Elector’s hat_, with a curiously shaped conical fruit, etc. No value should be attached to the local names in this designation of varieties, for we have often seen that they express as many errors as varieties. The botanical names attributed to the species by Naudin and Cogniaux are numerous, on account of the bad habit which existed not long ago of describing as species purely garden varieties, without taking into account the wonderful effects of cultivation and selection upon the organ for the sake of which the plant is cultivated.

Most of these varieties exist in the gardens of the warm and temperate regions of both hemispheres. The origin of the species is considered to be doubtful. I hesitated in 1855[1263] between Southern Asia and the Mediterranean basin. Naudin and Cogniaux[1264] admit Southern Asia as probable, and the botanists of the United States on their side have given reasons for their belief in an American origin. The question requires careful investigation.

I shall first seek for those forms now attributed to the species which have been found growing anywhere in a wild state.

The variety _Cucurbita ovifera_, Linnæus, was formerly gathered by Lerche, near Astrakhan, but no modern botanist has confirmed this fact, and it is probable it was a cultivated plant. Moreover, Linnæus does not assert it was wild. I have consulted all the Asiatic and African floras without finding the slightest mention of a wild variety. From Arabia, or even from the coast of Guinea to Japan, the species, or the varieties attributed to it, are always said to be cultivated. In India, Roxburgh remarked this, and certainly Clarke, in his recent flora of British India, has good reasons for indicating no locality for it outside cultivation.

It is otherwise in America. A variety, _C. texana_,[1265] very near to the variety _ovata_, according to Asa Gray, and which is now unhesitatingly attributed to _C. Pepo_, was found by Lindheimer “on the edges of thickets, in damp woods, on the banks of the upper Guadaloupe, apparently an indigenous plant.” Asa Gray adds, however, that it is perhaps the result of naturalization. However, as several species of the genus _Cucurbita_ grow wild in Mexico and in the south-west of the United States, we are naturally led to consider the collector’s opinion sound. It does not appear that other botanists found this plant in Mexico, or in the United States. It is not mentioned in Hemsley’s _Biologia Centrali-Americana_, nor in Asa Gray’s recent flora of California.

Some synonyms or specimens from South America, attributed to _C. Pepo_, appear to me very doubtful. It is impossible to say what Molina[1266] meant by the names _C. Siceratia_ and _C. mammeata_, which appear, moreover, to have been cultivated plants. Two species briefly described in the account of the journey of Spix and Martius (ii. p. 536), and also attributed to _C. Pepo_,[1267] are mentioned among cultivated plants on the banks of the Rio Francisco. Lastly, the specimen of Spruce, 2716, from the river Uaupes, a tributary of the Rio Negro, which Cogniaux[1268] does not mention having seen, and which he first attributed to the _C. Pepo_, and afterwards to the _C. moschata_, was perhaps cultivated or naturalized from cultivation, or by transport, in spite of the paucity of inhabitants in this country.

Botanical indications are, therefore, in favour of a Mexican or Texan origin. It remains to be seen if historical records are in agreement with or contrary to this idea.

It is impossible to discover whether a given Sanskrit, Greek, or Latin name for the pumpkin belongs to one species rather than to another. The form of the fruit is often the same, and the distinctive characters are never mentioned by authors.

There is no figure of the pumpkin in the _Herbarius Pataviæ Impressus_ of 1485, before the discovery of America, but sixteenth-century authors have published plates which may be attributed to it. There are three forms of _Pepones_ figured on page 406 of Dodoens, edition 1557. A fourth, _Pepo rotundus major_, added in the edition of 1616, appears to me to be _C. maxima_. In the drawing of _Pepo oblongus_ of Lobel, _Icones_, 641, the character of the peduncle is clearly defined. The names given to these plants imply a foreign origin; but the authors could make no assertions on this head, all the more that the name of “the Indies” applied both to Southern Asia and America.

Thus historical data do not gainsay the opinion of an American origin, but neither do they adduce anything in support of it.

If the belief that it grows wild in America is confirmed, it may be confidently asserted that the pumpkins cultivated by the Romans and in the Middle Ages were _Cucurbita maxima_, and those of the natives of North America, seen by different travellers in the seventeenth century, were _Cucurbita Pepo_.

+Musk+, or +Melon Pumpkin+—_Cucurbita moschata_, Duchesne.

The _Bon Jardinier_ quotes as the principal varieties of this species pumpkin _muscade de Provence_, _pleine de Naples_, and _de Barbarie_. It is needless to say that these names show nothing as to origin. The species is easily recognized by its fine soft down, the pentagonal peduncle which supports the fruit broadening at the summit; the fruit is more or less covered with a glaucous efflorescence, and the flesh is somewhat musk-scented. The lobes of the calyx are often terminated by a leafy border.[1269] Cultivated in all tropical countries, it is less successful than other pumpkins in temperate regions.

Cogniaux[1270] suspects that it comes from the south of Asia, but he gives no proof of this. I have searched through the floras of the old and new worlds, and I have nowhere been able to discover the mention of the species in a truly wild state. The indications which approach most nearly to it are: (1) In Asia, in the island of Bangka, a specimen verified by Cogniaux, and which Miquel[1271] says is not cultivated; (2) in Africa, in Angola, specimens which Welwitsch says are quite wild, but “probably due to an introduction;” (3) in America, five specimens from Brazil, Guiana, or Nicaragua, mentioned by Cogniaux, without knowing whether they were cultivated, naturalized, or indigenous. These indications are very slight. Rumphius, Blume, Clarke (_Flora of British India_) in Asia, Schweinfurth (Oliver’s _Flora of Trop. Africa_) in Africa, only know it as a cultivated plant. Its cultivation is recent in China,[1272] and American floras rarely mention the species.

No Sanskrit name is known, and the Indian, Malay, and Chinese names are neither very numerous nor very original, although the cultivation of the plant seems to be more diffused in Southern Asia than in other parts of the tropics. It was already grown in the seventeenth century according to the _Hortus Malabaricus_, in which there is a good plate (vol. viii. pl. 2). It does not appear that this species was known in the sixteenth century, for Dalechamp’s illustration (_Hist._, i. p. 616) which Seringe attributed to it has not its true characters, and I can find no other figure which resembles it.

+Fig-leaved Pumpkin+—_Cucurbita ficifolia_, Bouché; _Cucurbita melanosperma_, Braun.