2000/06/01 by Harry S. Paris · 2 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Advances in Cucurbitaceae Research #Plant Diversity and Evolution #Plant Pathogens and Fungal Diseases
paper · pdf · doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1147
openalex publication_date 2000/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
A. N. Duchesne (1747–1827), a French botanist and horticulturist possessing a keen power of observation for variation in plants, depicted accurately and in painstaking detail the fruits of 98 Cucurbita cultivars and their offspring resulting from cross-pollination, between 1769 and 1774. These 364 drawings of Cucurbita , most of which are watercolour paintings of C. pepo , are preserved in the Central Library of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, where they are catalogued as manuscript no. 5007. Black-and-white photographs of approximately half of the drawings are housed in the L. H. Bailey Hortorium in Ithaca, New York, USA. The depictions are dated and numbered, with the numbers corresponding to the brief verbal descriptions published in Duchesne's (1786) Essai sur l'histoire naturelle des courges (Paris: Panckoucke). Twenty of the drawings of C. pepo are reproduced and interpreted herein. They include the earliest known pictures of the economically important cocozelle and straightneck types of squash, as well as the ornamental bicolour and crown gourds. Duchesne's collection of domesticated C. pepo contained a far lower proportion of edible-fruited forms than occurs in existing cultigens of this species. Copyright 2000 Annals of Botany Company