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12 The Mystery of the Okeechobee Gourd Marc C. Minno and Maria Minno The River The St. Johns River is the longest river in Florida. It begins in the marshes surrounding Blue Cypress Lake in Indian River County and flows northward through a series of lakes. Along the way, springs and creeks, some fresh, some salty, join the river’s flow to the sea.The river water is generally black and tealike and enriched with dissolved minerals.1 The last lake through which the river flows is Lake George, the second largest lake in Florida. From Jacksonville the river turns eastward and forms an expansive estuary that empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1765–1766, John Bartram and his son William traveled into Florida and up the St. Johns River. Later, in 1774, William followed his father’s footsteps and canoed up the St. Johns River to explore and collect plants. In Travels, William Bartram wrote: “It is very pleasing to observe the banks of the river, ornamented with hanging garlands, composed of varieties of climbing vegetables, both shrubs and plants, forming perpendicular green walls, with projecting jambs, pilasters, and deep apartments, twenty or thirty feet high, and completely covered with Glycine frutescens, Glyc. apios, Vitis labrusca, Vitis vulpina, Rajana, Hedera quinquifolia, Hedera arborea, Eupatorium scandens, Bignonia crucigera, and various species of Convolvulus, particularly an amazing tall climber of this genus , or perhaps an Ipomoea.”2 Today, in spite of power boats, jet ski riders, and barges, Bartram’s descriptions of the river can still be recognized in many places. Near Hontoon Island both John and William noticed evidence that native Florida Indians had once lived there.3 Also of interest was a “Wild Squash” growing along the riverbanks . In Travels, William Bartram recorded that it was “exceedingly curious to behold the Wild Squash* climbing over the lofty limbs of the trees; its yel- The Mystery of the Okeechobee Gourd 205 low fruit, somewhat of the size and figure of a large orange, pendant from the extremities of the limbs over the water.” In a footnote (that he noted with an asterisk), Bartram identified the “wild squash” as “Cucurbita peregrina.”4 For a long time, no one knew which plant William Bartram was talking about, since there was no specimen to study and botanists had not found a species that matched his brief description. Indeed, over a century passed until John Kunkel Small found a gourd that matched the description, but the location was in southern Florida. He discovered the gourds between 1913 and 1917 during expeditions to Lake Okeechobee. He found a gourd climbing into pond apple trees (Annona glabra L.) in dense hammocks along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Small called this plant the Okeechobee gourd (Pepo okeechobeensis).5 The botanist L. H. Bailey, working in the next decade, changed the plant’s name and moved the Okeechobee gourd into the genus Cucurbita. As had been the case for both Bartram and Small, Bailey found that learning about this rare gourd required an adventuresome spirit. In 1943 he published an account of his experience in the wild Florida swamps where the gourd had been found. Bailey was trying to collect a female flower from the plant, since none was yet known to science. He wrote: In October 1929 I was accompanied by E. G. Hume, son of Dean H. H. Hume of the University of Florida. Diligent search had failed to discover a pistillate flower. Finally we saw one about ready to expand, swinging on the limb of a dead tree about 30 feet or more above the ground, and hanging over the water. We could find nothing long enough to reach it. The vine would not rip loose. The tree was covered with poison ivy. The day was dark and the tail end of a hurricane was blowing itself out. Hume had a 22 Colt automatic pistol, woodsman model. He climbed the tree a short distance to get above the brush and gripped himself tight. Then he fired away. A bullet cut the stem cleanly and the flower floated to my feet in perfect condition. . . . It is the only pistillate flower of Cucurbita okeechobeensis I have ever seen in the wild.6 It took people who worked both in botany and history to link the find to William Bartram. In an article entitled “In Defense of the Validity of William Bartram’s Binomials,” published in 1944, E. D. Merrill postulated that Bartram ’s wild squash...

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