2. The Great Pumpkin. Cucurbita Pepo maxima

1Melopepo fructu maximo albo. Tournef. 106. Cucurbita aspera, folio non fisso, fructu maximo albo sessili. J. B. 2. p. 221. Pepo maximus indicus compressus. Lob. Ic. 641. Pepo compressus major. Bauh. Pin. 311. Cucurbita pepo α. Lin.?

2The Great Pumpkin, very obviously different from the other gourds included under the species of Pepo, is distinguished by its flowers that are more flared and more enlarged at the base of the calyx, having a tip that is reflexed or turned down in a noticeable way, and for its large leaves, round-heart shaped, that are sustained by their petiole in a nearly horizontal direction. Their hǂǂirs are less rough and their substance is softer than that of any Pepo; and it approaches that of the Melon-like Pumpkin. All of the parts of the plant are stronger or larger in proportion to that of any Pepo; the fruit, generally larger and more uniform in its flat spherical shape, has regular lobes, and considerable recesses at the stylar and peduncle ends; its fruit flesh is firmer and nevertheless juicy and melting; the rind is thin, like that of most of the Pattypans: this we can add as characterizing the Great Pumpkins.

3At length, although several varieties of it exist, not one shares the nature of the Pumpkins, with which they have very often been raised together. Is this negative proof sufficient for regarding it as forming a distinct species: I so leave it to be decided. I have only wanted to announce that the Great Pumpkin does not at all enter into this prodigious variation, of which I am about to present the table in the race of the polymorphic Pepos.

4The figure engraved by Tournefort (Inst. t. 34.) represents the Great Pumpkin very well. Ray had made mention of it, but without having verified it. Finally, the existence of this species has been very well felt since then by Sauvages, who described its fruit in short: Sphaera polis compressus, meridianis sulcatis (Meth. Fol. p. 112. n ° 209.). This is the first botanist who had given it the name of Great Pumpkin. He includes in it the Melopepo compressus C. B., probably wrongly.

5I have believed, for lack of a name more precise, to be able to dedicate to the Great Pumpkin the Latin name maxima, which is suitable for it, at least with regard to the present and recalls the old citations. This enormous size that the Great Pumpkin commonly acquires gives rise to the belief that in the condition where we have it, it owes much to domestication. It was new in the sixteenth century, and one gave it then, as to the Melon-like Pumpkin, the name Sea Gourd or Overseas Gourd, also that of Indian Gourd as well: but I have been able to find nothing more on its origin. The principal varieties are:

6a. The common yellow Great Pumpkin.

7This shade of yellow is always reddish, however pale that it may be, so some can be found being nearly the color of bronze. One observes quite often a whitish stripe in the bottom of the furrow between the lobes, at this point it is smoother and the rest of the rind is subject to slight gray cracks and scars, sometimes acquiring the netting like that of a melon. I have seen two on the same plant that were entirely covered; but this variant did not reappear in its progeny. The yellow Great Pumpkin is the largest and it is also the most common: it is found frequently to weigh 30 to 40 pounds and sometimes exceeds 60. The color of the flesh is a nice yellow; and the more intense it is, the better it is found to eat.

8b. The large green Great Pumpkin.

9This green is always grayish and sometimes slate. It is subject to white stripes, just like the yellow Great Pumpkin; its fruit flesh also varies in color; in some of them, the yellow approaches the orange-red of the red Melon-like Pumpkins. In general, the green Great Pumpkins, a little less large, are esteemed as the best; they keep a longer time.

10c. The small green Great Pumpkin.

11A subvariety that is distinguished and that is sought after because its very flat fruit, fuller and less watery, keeps several weeks more and remains good to eat until the end of March.

Cucurbita maxima Duchesne (1786b, Table on p. 7)

12Cucurbita maxima was first named in the Essai sur l’Histoire Naturelle des Courges, in the table on page 7, and almost simultaneously in the volume of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, Botanique for which the Essai was composed. The Latin designation that Duchesne chose, maxima, and the reason he gave for choosing it was not only appropriate then but even extremely moreso now. Duchesne gave the weight of Le Potiron Jaune Commun as 30 or 40 pounds (14 to 18 kg), sometimes exceeding 60 pounds. The world’s record for the largest fruit increases almost every year in pumpkin, C. maxima, weigh-off contests, that are held annually at several locations, and 600 kg has been exceeded.

13Fruits of C. maxima are depicted in the festoons that had been completed no later than 1518 at the Villa Farnesina in Rome (Caneva 1992, Ravelli 2004, Janick & Paris 2006). Duchesne’s abbreviated allusions are to descriptions by C. Bauhin (1623), J. Bauhin (1651), and possibly by Linné (1753), and to illustrations by L’Obel (1591) and Tournefort (1700). Not cited by Duchesne is the first botanical illustration of C. maxima, by L’Obel (1576), and which was reproduced by Dalechamps (1587), Dodoens (1616), and others. Duchesne referred to Ray (1686), who under the heading Pepo maximus Indicus compressus Lob., described a pumpkin having leaves that were not cornered or divided but instead rounded, and large, oblate to depressed fruits approaching 30 lbs. (14 kg) in weight. Duchesne also referred to a description of this species by Boissier de la Croix (1751) and wrote that Boissier de la Croix was the first botanist to use the term potiron. However, potiron was already in use in France by the mid-17^th century (Bonnefons 1660). C. maxima is native to South America and best adapted to warm-temperate climates. Duchesne noted the relatively high quality of the fruit flesh of this species, and because of this attribute C. maxima was to become widely grown in the United States and Europe beginning in the 19^th century.

14While he was aware that C. maxima was quite variable in fruit characteristics, Duchesne (1786a, p. 24) wrote of this species: La peau assez fine et ne faisant jamais coque comme dans plusieurs Giraumons ne présente point de bosselures mais assez souvent de la broderie… (The rind quite thin and never making a shell as in some of the Long Squash, does not present warts but rather quite often a netting…) His not being aware of C. maxima cultigens that do have a lignified rind and warts contributed to his mistaken diagnosis, when presented with a fruit of a turban gourd, of classifying it as a race of C. polymorpha (C. pepo) in the Addition du 18 août 1786 (Duchesne 1786b, p. 44) and again in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, Agriculture (Duchesne 1793).

PLATE 233

15N^o 97. Dated 29 December 1770. A fairly large, spherical fruit with an orange-tan rind on which is superimposed a netting much like that of a melon, with a slice taken out lengthwise to reveal thick, intense yellow-orange fruit flesh and white seeds. This fruit is from a cultivar of C. maxima.

PLATE 234

16N^o 97a. Dated 2 January 1772. A cut piece of a fruit viewed endwise to show the rind, which is mediumintense yellow-orange with narrow, medium yellow stripes, undoubtedly C. maxima. Fruit flesh, shown at a very oblique angle, appears to be intense yellow.

PLATE 235

17N^o 98. Dated 22 December 1769. A cut half of a fruit viewed endwise. Fruit appears to be medium-size, oblate, with shallow furrows, light-medium blue-gray-green, flesh relatively thin, light orange. This is another cultivar of C. maxima.

PLATE 236

18Unnumbered, in Document 6 designated U. Dated 1786. Painting inscribed Prévost pinxit, indicating that it was painted by Prévost. Stylar-end view of turban gourd, broader part red-orange and black-green, with the latter concentrated around the circular stylar scar which encompasses the smaller stylar part that is gray with streaks of dark green and red-orange.

PLATE 236

19Unnumbered, in Document 6 designated V. Dated Nov. 1785. Side view of a different turban gourd, probably from a different cultivar, larger part medium-intense orange and dark green, with the latter concentrated around the circular stylar scar; smaller, stylar part mostly light-medium yellow-green marked with dark green streaks.

PLATE 237

20Unnumbered, in Document 6 designated X. Dated 1796. Black-and-white. Inscribed and drawn by Lucette Duchesne. Six fruits designated with letters A through F, probably open-pollinated progeny of a turban gourd cultivar, differing greatly in the relative size of the “turban“. Half actual size.