Calabazas de las Indias — American squash in the 1590 record, and a word that names two plants

Acosta's Seville imprint of 1590 separates the squashes "proprias de la tierra, que alla llaman Çapallos" from gourds in general, gives their food and vessel uses, and in the same paragraph records European vegetables taking hold in the Indies. Modern genetics confirms the split he sensed: Cucurbita is American and ten thousand years old, the bottle gourd is Asian. The book also contradicts itself, and that page is here too.