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.