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.