This plant, of the order _Cucurbitaceæ_, is cultivated in tropical America for its fruits, shaped like a pear, and tasting like a cucumber. They contain only one seed, so that the flesh is abundant. The species alone constitutes the genus Sechium. There are specimens in every herbarium, but generally collectors do not indicate whether they are naturalized, or really wild, and apparently indigenous in the country. Without speaking of works in which this plant is said to come from the East Indies, which is entirely a mistake, several of the best give Jamaica[1347] as the original home. However, P. Browne,[1348] in the middle of the last century, said positively that it was cultivated there, and Sloane does not mention it. Jacquin[1349] says that it “inhabits Cuba, and is cultivated there,” and Richard copies this phrase in the flora of R. de La Sagra without adding any proof. Naudin says,[1350] “a Mexican plant,” but he does not give his reasons for asserting this. Cogniaux,[1351] in his recent monograph, mentions a great number of specimens gathered from Brazil to the West Indies without saying if he had seen any one of these given as wild. Seemann[1352] saw the plant cultivated at Panama, and he adds a remark, important if correct, namely, that the name _chayote_, common in the isthmus, is the corruption of an Aztec word, _chayotl_. This is an indication of an ancient existence in Mexico, but I do not find the word in Hernandez, the classic author on the Mexican plants anterior to the Spanish conquest. The _chayote_ was not cultivated in Cayenne ten years ago.[1353] Nothing indicates an ancient cultivation in Brazil. The species is not mentioned by early writers, such as Piso and Marcgraf, and the name _chuchu_, given as Brazilian,[1354] seems to me to come from _chocho_, the Jamaica name, which is perhaps a corruption of the Mexican word. The plant is probably a native of the south of Mexico and of Central America, and was transported into the West India Islands and to Brazil in the eighteenth century. The species was afterwards introduced into Mauritius and Algeria, where it is very successful.[1355] +Indian Fig+, or +Prickly Pear+—_Opuntia ficus indica_, Miller. This fleshy plant of the _Cactus_ family, which produces the fruit known in the south of Europe as the Indian fig, has no connection with the fig tree, nor has the fruit with the fig. Its origin is not Indian but American. Everything is erroneous and absurd in this common name. However, since Linnæus took his botanical name from it, _Cactus ficus indica_, afterwards connected with the genus _Opuntia_, it was necessary to retain the specific name to avoid changes which are a source of confusion, and to recall the popular denomination. The prickly forms, and those more or less free from spines, have been considered by some authors as distinct species, but an attentive examination leads us to regard them as one.[1356]