Pumpkin plant
Original title: Aboboreira
The pumpkin and squash plants cultivated widely in Madeira, chiefly Cucurbita moschata and C. pepo, with notes on varieties and uses.
Two kinds of pumpkin plant exist in Madeira and are grown there on a large scale: the one that produces the pumpkins Madeirans call black or Guinea pumpkins (Cucurbita moschata), and the one that produces the abóbora machado (a local squash, Cucurbita pepo) (C. Pepo). The first, which appears to originate in the West Indies, is the more common and is easily recognised by its white-spotted leaves. The second, grown chiefly above 200 or 300 metres, comes from southern Asia and has leaves without white spots. It is the abóbora machado that yields the seeds used against tapeworm and roundworms. The plants that produce the orange pumpkin, the warty pumpkin and the crown pumpkin are mere varieties of C. Pepo. The black or Guinea pumpkin, which varies greatly in shape, has, when it comes from selected plants, a much better flavour than the abóbora machado or the abóbora menina of Portugal (C. maxima).