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.