Gourd

GOURD, a name given to various plants of the family Cucur bitaceae, especially those belonging to the genus Cucurbita, monoe cious trailing herbs of annual duration, with long succulent stems furnished with tendrils, and large, rough, palmately-lobed leaves; the flowers are generally large and of a bright yellow or orange colour, the barren ones with the stamens united; the fertile are followed by the large succulent fruit that gives the gourds their economic value. The most important of the gourds, from an economic point of view, is perhaps C. maxima, the red and yellow gourd of British gardeners. It is grown in southern Asia and Europe. In Turkey and Asia Minor it yields, at some periods of the year, an important article of diet to the people; immense quantities are sold in the markets of Constantinople. The yellow kind attains occasionally a weight of upwards of 24o1b. It grows well in central Europe and the United States, while in the south of England it will produce its gigantic fruit to perfection in hot summers. In France and in the East it is used in soups and ragouts, while simply boiled it replaces other table vegetables. In some countries the larger kinds are employed as cattle food. The seeds yield by expression a large quantity of a bland oil, which is used for the same purposes as that of the poppy and olive. The "mammoth" gourds of English and American gar deners (known in America as squashes) belong to this species. The pumpkin (summer squash of America) is Cucurbita Pepo. Some of the varieties of C. maxima and Pepo contain a con siderable quantity of sugar, amounting in the sweetest kinds to 4 or 5%, and in the hot plains of Hungary efforts have been made to use them commercially. The young shoots of both these large gourds may be given to cattle, and can be eaten as a green vegetable when boiled. The vegetable marrow is a variety (ovifera) of C. Pepo. Many smaller gourds are cultivated in India and other hot climates.

The bottle-gourds are placed in a separate genus,

Lagenaria, chiefly differing from Cucurbita in the anthers being free instead of adherent. The bottle-gourd proper, L. vulgaris, is a climbing plant with downy, heart-shaped leaves and beautiful white flowers: the remarkable fruit of which first begins to grow in the form of an elongated cylinder, but gradually widens towards the extrem ity, until, when ripe, it resembles a flask with a narrow neck and large rounded bulb; it sometimes attains a length of 7ft. When ripe, the pulp is removed from the neck, and the interior cleared by leaving water standing in it ; the woody rind that remains is used as a bottle. The ripe fruit is bitter and cathartic, but while immature it is eaten by the Arabs and Turks. The snake-gourds of India and China (Trichosanthes) are used in curries and stews.

All the true gourds have a tendency to secrete the cathartic principle colocynthin, and in many varieties of Cucurbita and allied genera it is often elaborated to such an extent as to render them unwholesome, or even poisonous. The seeds of several species therefore possess some anthelmintic properties.

The abundance of varieties found in India would seem to indicate that part of Asia as the birthplace of the present edible forms ; but some appear to have been cultivated in all the hotter regions of that continent, and in North Africa, from the earliest ages, while the Romans were familiar with at least certain kinds of Cucurbita, and with the bottle-gourd. Cucurbita Pepo is prob ably a native of America.