90-405: Calabash ( / ˈ k æ l ə b æ ʃ / ; Lagenaria siceraria ), also known as bottle gourd , white-flowered gourd , long melon , birdhouse gourd , New Guinea bean , New Guinea butter bean , Tasmania bean , and opo squash , is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable , or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil, container , or
180-508: A musical instrument . When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh. Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically called calabash gourds . The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and
270-661: A commercially important example of a bine. The direction of rotation of the shoot tip during climbing is autonomous and does not (as sometimes imagined) derive from the shoot's following the sun around the sky – the direction of twist does not therefore depend upon which side of the equator the plant is growing on. This is shown by the fact that some bines always twine clockwise, including runner bean ( Phaseolus coccineus ) and bindweed ( Convolvulus species), while others twine anticlockwise, including black bryony ( Dioscorea communis ) and climbing honeysuckles ( Lonicera species). The contrasting rotations of bindweed and honeysuckle
360-529: A continent in that southern part; full of animals and more populous than our Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and even more temperate and pleasant than any other region known to us. Vespucci's letter was a publishing sensation in Europe that was immediately and repeatedly reprinted in several other countries. Peter Martyr, who had been writing and circulating private letters commenting on Columbus's discoveries since 1493, often shares credit with Vespucci for designating
450-659: A dried gourd vessel called the kamandalu . The juice of a bottle gourd is considered to have medicinal properties and be very healthy (see juice toxicity above). In parts of India a dried, unpunctured gourd is used as a float (called surai-kuduvai in Tamil) to help people learn to swim in rural areas. In the Philippines, dried calabash gourds are one common material for making a traditional salakot hat. In 2012, Teófilo García of Abra in Luzon , an expert artisan who makes
540-415: A few grow as vines only part of the time. For instance, poison ivy and bittersweet can grow as low shrubs when support is not available, but will become vines when support is available. A vine displays a growth form based on very long stems. This has two purposes. A vine may use rock exposures, other plants, or other supports for growth rather than investing energy in a lot of supportive tissue, enabling
630-482: A few weeks after Columbus's return from his first voyage, Martyr wrote letters referring to Columbus's discovered lands as the "western antipodes" ("antipodibus occiduis", letter of 14 May 1493), the "new hemisphere of the earth" ("novo terrarum hemisphaerio", 13 September 1493). In a letter dated 1 November 1493, he refers to Columbus as the "discoverer of the new globe" ("Colonus ille novi orbis repertor"). A year later, on 20 October 1494, Peter Martyr again refers to
720-584: A large open ocean between China on the east side of the map, and the inchoate largely water-surrounded North American and South American discoveries on the western side of map. Out of uncertainty, they depicted a finger of the Asian land mass stretching across the top to the eastern edge of the map, suggesting it carried over into the western hemisphere. E.g. the Cantino Planisphere denotes Greenland as "Punta d'Asia"—"edge of Asia". Some maps, e.g.,
810-431: A pole or trellis. If planted under a tall tree, the vine may grow up to the top of the tree. To obtain more fruit, farmers sometimes cut off the tip of the vine when it has grown to 6–8 feet in length. This forces the plant to produce side branches that will bear flowers and yield more fruit. The plant produces night blooming white flowers. The male flowers have long peduncles and the females have short ones with an ovary in
900-577: A secondary product. It is also grown by the Italian diaspora . Hollowed-out and dried calabashes are a very typical utensil in households across West Africa. They are used to clean rice, carry water, and as food containers. Smaller sizes are used as bowls to drink palm wine . Calabashes are used in making the West African instruments like the Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀ , a Yoruba instrument similar to a maraca, kora (a harp-lute ), xalam / ngoni (a lute) and
990-561: A touch stimulus, vanadate -sensitive K , Mg ATPase and Ca -translocating ATPases rapidly increase their activity. This increases transmembrane ion fluxes that appear to be involved in the early stages of tendril coiling. New World The term " New World " is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth 's Western Hemisphere , particularly the Americas . The term arose in the early 16th century during Europe 's Age of Discovery , after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci published
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#17327753093051080-428: A tree trunk, which it can then climb to brighter regions. The vine growth form may also enable plants to colonize large areas quickly, even without climbing high. This is the case with periwinkle and ground ivy . It is also an adaptation to life in areas where small patches of fertile soil are adjacent to exposed areas with more sunlight but little or no soil. A vine can root in the soil but have most of its leaves in
1170-527: Is lauki chana , ( chana dal and diced gourd in a semi-dry gravy). In the state of Maharashtra in India, a similar preparation called dudhi chana is popular. The skin of the vegetable is used in making a dry spicy chutney preparation. It is consumed in Assam with fish curry , as boiled vegetable curry and also fried with potato and tomatoes. Lauki kheer (grated bottle gourd, sugar and milk preparation)
1260-502: Is 95% water, 4% carbohydrates , 1% protein , and contains negligible fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3.5 oz), cooked calabash supplies a moderate amount of vitamin C (10% of the Daily Value ), with no other micronutrients in significant amounts (table). In Central America the seeds of the bottle gourd are toasted and ground with other ingredients (including rice, cinnamon, and allspice) to make one type of
1350-665: Is a dessert from Telangana , usually prepared for festive occasions. In Andhra Pradesh it is called sorakaya and is used to make sorakaya pulusu (with tamarind juice), sorakaya palakura (curry with milk and spices) and sorakaya pappu (with lentils ). Lau chingri , a dish prepared with bottle gourd and prawn , is popular in West Bengal . The edible leaves and young stems of the plant are widely used in Bengali cuisine . Although popularly called lauki in Hindi in northern part of
1440-404: Is a popular fruit. The young leaves are also boiled and eaten with a spicy, fermented fish sauce. It can also be cut up, coated in batter and deep fried to make fritters , which are eaten with Burmese mohinga . In the Philippines, calabash (known locally as upo ) is commonly cooked in soup dishes like tinola . They are also common ingredients in noodle ( pancit ) dishes. In Vietnam , it
1530-458: Is a very popular vegetable, commonly cooked in soup with shrimp, meatballs, clams, various fish like freshwater catfish or snakehead fish or crab. It is also commonly stir-fried with meat or seafood, or incorporated as an ingredient of a hotpot . It is also used as a medicine. Americans have called calabashes from Vietnam "opo squash". The shoots , tendrils , and leaves of the plant may also be eaten as greens . A popular north Indian dish
1620-593: Is a woody shrub-vine which climbs without clinging roots, tendrils, or thorns. It directs its stem into a crevice in the bark of fibrous barked trees (such as bald cypress ) where the stem adopts a flattened profile and grows up the tree underneath the host tree's outer bark. The fetterbush then sends out branches that emerge near the top of the tree. Most vines are flowering plants. These may be divided into woody vines or lianas , such as akebia wisteria , kiwifruit , and common ivy , and herbaceous (nonwoody) vines, such as morning glory . One odd group of vining plants
1710-483: Is an ancient symbol for health. Hulu had fabled healing properties due to doctors in former times carrying medicine inside it. The hulu was believed to absorb negative, earth-based qi (energy) that would otherwise affect health, and is a traditional Chinese medicine cure. The bottle gourd is a symbol of the Eight Immortals , and particularly Li Tieguai , who is associated with medicine. Li Tieguai's gourd
1800-498: Is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas, or runners. The word vine can also refer to such stems or runners themselves, for instance, when used in wicker work. In parts of the world, including the British Isles, the term "vine" usually applies exclusively to grapevines, while the term "climber" is used for all climbing plants. Certain plants always grow as vines, while
1890-518: Is called Sorekayi and is used to prepare palya (stir-fry) and Sambaru (a south Indian stew). Also, crispy sorekayi dosé ( dosa ) is one of the popular breakfasts in Karnataka. In Bangladesh the fruit is served with rice as a common dish. In Nepal, in the Madheshi southern plains, preparations other than as a normal vegetable include halva and khichdi . In Pakistan, the calabash
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#17327753093051980-475: Is cultivated on a large scale as its fruit are a popular vegetable. In Sri Lanka, it is used in combination with rice to make a variety of milk rice, which is a popular dish in Sri Lanka. Different types of curries are also made using this, specially white curries with coconut milk. In Southern Italy and Sicily, the variety Lagenaria siceraria var. longissima, called zucca da vino, zucca bottiglia, or cucuzza,
2070-536: Is grown and used in soup or along with pasta. In Sicily, mostly in the Palermo area, a traditional soup called "Minestra di Tenerumi" is made with the tender leaves of var. Longissima along with peeled tomato and garlic. The young leaves are themselves called "tenerumi", and Lagenaria in Sicily is cultivated both professionally and in home orchards mostly to use the leaves as a vegetable, the fruit being treated almost as
2160-971: Is loaned from Middle French : calebasse , which in turn derived from Spanish : calabaza meaning gourd or pumpkin. The Spanish word is of pre-Roman origin. It comes from the Iberian : calapaccu , from -cal which means house or shell. It is a doublet of carapace and galapago . The English word is cognate with Catalan : carabassa ("pumpkin; orange colour"), Galician : cabaza ("gourd, pumpkin, squash; calabash (container)"), Occitan : calebasso , carabasso , carbasso , Portuguese : cabaça ("gourd; calabash (container)") and Sicilian : caravazza (and caramazza ). The bottle gourd has been recovered from archaeological contexts in China and Japan dating to c. 8,000–9,000 BP , whereas in Africa, despite decades of high-quality archaeobotanical research,
2250-515: Is mediated by changes in turgor pressure mediated by volume changes in the epidermal cells of the bending zone. Climbing vines can take on many unique characteristics in response to changes in their environments. Climbing vines can induce chemical defenses and modify their biomass allocation in response to herbivores. In particular, the twisting vine Convolvulus arvensis increases its twining in response to herbivore-associated leaf damage, which may lead to reduced future herbivory. Additionally,
2340-477: Is now named South America, that same map famously labels simply " America ". Martin Waldseemüller 's map of 1516 retreats considerably from his earlier map and back to classical authority, with the Asian land mass merging into North America, which he now calls Terra de Cuba Asie partis , and quietly drops the "America" label from South America, calling it merely Terra incognita . The western coast of
2430-623: Is often dried when ripe and used as a percussion instrument called an ipu heke (double gourd drum) or just Ipu in contemporary and ancient hula . The Māori people of New Zealand grew several cultivars of calabash for particular uses like ipu kai cultivars as food containers and tahā wai cultivars as water gourds. They believed the gourd as a representation of Pū-tē-hue, one of Tāne (their god of forests)'s offspring. Several types of taonga pūoro (musical instruments) are made from gourds, including types of flute (ororuarangi, kōauau ponga ihu) and shakers (hue rarā, hue puruwai). The calabash
2520-822: Is optimized by the installation of trellis netting. Gardeners can use the tendency of climbing plants to grow quickly. If a plant display is wanted quickly, a climber can achieve this. Climbers can be trained over walls, pergolas, fences, etc. Climbers can be grown over other plants to provide additional attraction. Artificial support can also be provided. Some climbers climb by themselves; others need work, such as tying them in and training them. Vines widely differ in size, form and evolutionary origin. Darwin classified climbing groups based on their climbing method. He classified five classes of vines – twining plants, leaf climbers, tendril bearers, root climbers and hook climbers. Vines are unique in that they have multiple evolutionary origins. They usually reside in tropical locations and have
2610-517: Is spread throughout Polynesia known by hue in many related languages. In Hawaii the word "calabash" refers to a large serving bowl, usually made from hardwood rather than from the calabash gourd, which is used on a buffet table or in the middle of the dining table. The use of the calabash in Hawaii has led to terms like "calabash family" or "calabash cousins", indicating an extended family grown up around shared meals and close friendships. This gourd
2700-916: Is the case of the Saraswati veena . Other instruments like rudra veena and vichitra veena have two large calabash resonators at both ends of the strings table. The instrument, Gopichand used by the Baul singers of Bengal is made out of calabash. The practice is also common among Buddhist and Jain sages. These toombas are made of dried calabash gourds, using special cultivars that were originally imported from Africa and Madagascar. They are mostly grown in Bengal and near Miraj , Maharashtra . These gourds are valuable items and they are carefully tended; for example, they are sometimes given injections to stop worms and insects from making holes in them while they are drying. Hindu ascetics ( sadhu ) traditionally use
2790-534: Is the fern genus Lygodium , called climbing ferns . The stem does not climb, but rather the fronds (leaves) do. The fronds unroll from the tip, and theoretically never stop growing; they can form thickets as they unroll over other plants, rockfaces, and fences. A twining vine, also known as a bine , is one that climbs by its shoots growing in a helix , in contrast to vines that climb using tendrils or suckers. Many bines have rough stems or downward-pointing bristles to aid their grip. Hops (used in flavoring beer) are
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2880-447: Is used as a resonator in many string instruments in India. Instruments that look like guitars are made of wood, but can have a calabash resonator at the end of the strings table, called toomba . The sitar , the surbahar , the tanpura (north of India, tambura south of India), may have a toomba . In some cases, the toomba may not be functional, but if the instrument is large, it is retained because of its balance function, which
2970-474: Is used in Korean cuisine . Fresh calabash flesh, scraped out, seeded, salted and squeezed to draw out moisture, is called baksok . Scraped and sun-dried calabash flesh, called bak-goji , is usually soaked before being stir-fried. Soaked bak-goji is often simmered in sauce or stir-fried before being added to japchae and gimbap . Sometimes uncooked raw baksok is seasoned to make saengchae . In Burma, it
3060-466: The goje (a traditional fiddle). They also serve as resonators underneath the balafon (West African marimba ). The calabash is also used in making the shegureh (a Sierra Leonean women's rattle) and balangi (a Sierra Leonean type of balafon ) musical instruments. Sometimes large calabashes are simply hollowed, dried and used as percussion instruments by striking them, especially by Fulani , Songhai , Gur -speaking and Hausa peoples. In Nigeria
3150-472: The 2010 FIFA World Cup , is known as The Calabash as its shape takes inspiration from the calabash. The calabash is also used in the manufacture of puppets . Calabash also has a large cultural significance. In many African legends, Calabash (commonly referred to as gourds) are presented as a vessel for knowledge and wisdom. The húlu ( 葫芦 / 葫蘆 ), as the calabash is called in Mandarin Chinese ,
3240-659: The Eastern Hemisphere , while the Americas were then referred to as "the fourth part of the world", or the "New World". Antarctica and Oceania are considered neither Old World nor New World lands, since they were only discovered by Europeans much later. They were associated instead with the Terra Australis that had been posited as a hypothetical southern continent. All of the New World countries use
3330-657: The Ilocano tamburaw variant using calabash, was awarded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts with the "Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan" (National Living Treasures Award). He was cited for his dedication to practising and teaching the craft as an intangible cultural heritage of the Philippines under the Traditional Craftsmanship category. Among some New Guinea highland tribes,
3420-455: The Latin -language pamphlet Mundus Novus , presenting his conclusion that these lands (soon called America based on Amerigo's name ) constitute a new continent . This realization expanded the geographical horizon of earlier European geographers, who had thought that the world only included Afro-Eurasian lands. Africa , Asia , and Europe became collectively called the " Old World " of
3510-470: The Latin script as its official script. The Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci is usually credited for coming up with the term "New World" ( Mundus Novus ) for the Americas in his 1503 letter, giving it its popular cachet, although similar terms had been used and applied before him. The Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto used the term "un altro mondo" ("another world") to refer to sub-Saharan Africa , which he explored in 1455 and 1456 on behalf of
3600-576: The West Indies with what returning sailors told him of the East Indies . Vespucci wrote a preliminary letter to Lorenzo, while anchored at Bezeguiche, which he sent back with the Portuguese fleet, which expressed a certain puzzlement about his conversations. Vespucci ultimately was convinced while on his mapping expedition of eastern Brazil from 1501 to 1502. After returning from Brazil in
3690-442: The plastid genomes of a broad sample of bottle gourds, and concluded that North and South American specimens were most closely related to wild African variants and could have drifted over the ocean several or many times, as long as 10,000 years ago. Bottle gourds are grown by direct sowing of seeds or transplanting 15- to 20-day-old seedlings. The plant prefers well-drained, moist, organic rich soil. It requires plenty of moisture in
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3780-520: The turkey were originally domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples in Mesoamerica . Agriculturalists in the Andean region of South America brought forth the cassava , peanut , potato , quinoa and domesticated animals like the alpaca , guinea pig and llama . Other New World crops include the sweetpotato , cashew , cocoa , rubber , sunflower , tobacco , and vanilla , and fruits like
3870-544: The 1506 Contarini–Rosselli map and the 1508 Johannes Ruysch map, bowing to Ptolemaic authority and Columbus's assertions, have the northern Asian landmass stretching well into the western hemisphere and merging with known North America, Labrador, Newfoundland, etc. These maps place the island of Japan near Cuba and leave the South American continent—Vespucci's "New World" proper—detached and floating below by itself. The Waldseemüller map of 1507, which accompanied
3960-419: The Americas as a new world. Peter Martyr used the term Orbe Novo , meaning "New Globe", in the title of his history of the discovery of the Americas, which began appearing in 1511. The Vespucci passage above applied the "New World" label to merely the continental landmass of South America . At the time, most of the continent of North America was not yet discovered, and Vespucci's comments did not eliminate
4050-479: The Americas for thousands of years before Columbus' arrival to the Americas . Polynesian specimens of calabash were found to have genetic markers suggesting hybridization from Asian and American cultivars. In Europe, Walahfrid Strabo (808–849), abbot and poet from Reichenau and advisor to the Carolingian kings, discussed the gourd in his Hortulus as one of the 23 plants of an ideal garden. The mystery of
4140-609: The Americas in the course of human migration , or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (and existed in the New World ) during the Pre-Columbian era . There is sometimes confusion when discussing "calabash" because the name is shared with the unrelated calabash tree ( Crescentia cujete ), whose hard, hollow fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments. The English word calabash
4230-591: The Americas remained unclear. That there must be a large ocean between Asia and the Americas was implied by the known existence of vast continuous sea along the coasts of East Asia . Given the size of the Earth as calculated by Eratosthenes this left a large space between Asia and the newly discovered lands. Even prior to Vespucci, several maps, e.g. the Cantino planisphere of 1502 and the Canerio map of 1504, placed
4320-445: The Americas until they were introduced by post-Columbian contact in the 1490s. Many common crops were originally domesticated in the Americas before they spread worldwide after Columbian contact, and are still often referred to as " New World crops ". Common beans ( phaseolus ), maize , and squash —the " three sisters "—as well as the avocado , tomato , and wide varieties of capsicum ( bell pepper , chili pepper , etc.), and
4410-770: The Americas, to distinguish them from their counterparts in the "Old World" (Europe, Africa and Asia)—e.g., New World monkeys , New World vultures , New World warblers . The label is also often used in agriculture. Asia, Africa, and Europe share a common agricultural history stemming from the Neolithic Revolution , and the same domesticated plants and animals spread through these three continents thousands of years ago, making them largely indistinct and useful to classify together as "Old World". Common Old World crops, e.g., barley , lentils , oats , peas , rye , wheat , and domesticated animals, e.g., cattle , chickens , goats , horses , pigs , sheep , did not exist in
4500-528: The Atlantic coast of North America in what is present-day Canada and the United States . The term "New World" is still commonly employed when discussing historic spaces, particularly the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the subsequent European colonization of the Americas . It has been framed as being problematic for applying a colonial perspective of discovery and not doing justice to either
4590-518: The Kings of Spain. The term "New World" ( Mundus Novus ) was coined in Spring 1503 by Amerigo Vespucci in a letter written to his friend and former patron Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici , which was published in Latin ) in 1503–04 under the title Mundus Novus . Vespucci's letter contains the first explicit articulation in print of the hypothesis that the lands discovered by European navigators to
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#17327753093054680-534: The New World, including the Pacific Ocean , was discovered in 1513 by Vasco Núñez de Balboa , twenty years after Columbus' initial voyage. It was a few more years before the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan 's between 1519 and 1522 determined that the Pacific Ocean definitely formed a single large body of water that separates Asia from the Americas. Several years later, the Pacific Coast of North America
4770-533: The Portuguese. This was merely a literary flourish, not a suggestion of a new "fourth" part of the world. Cadamosto was aware that sub-Saharan Africa was part of the African continent. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera , an Italian chronicler at the service of Spain , doubted Christopher Columbus 's claims to have reached East Asia (" the Indies "), and consequently came up with alternative names to refer to them. Only
4860-400: The South American landmass is not a "fourth" continent, but rather the terrestrial paradise of Biblical tradition, a land allegedly known, but undiscovered, by Christendom . In another letter to the nurse of Prince John, written 1500, Columbus refers to having reached a "new heavens and world" ("nuevo cielo é mundo") and that he had placed "another world" ("otro mundo") under the dominion of
4950-494: The bottle gourd – namely that this African or Eurasian species was being grown in the Americas over 8,000 years ago – comes from the difficulty in understanding how it arrived in the Americas. The bottle gourd was theorized to have drifted across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to South America, but in 2005 a group of researchers suggested that it may have been domesticated earlier than food crops and livestock and, like dogs,
5040-406: The brighter, exposed area, getting the best of both environments. The evolution of a climbing habit has been implicated as a key innovation associated with the evolutionary success and diversification of a number of taxonomic groups of plants. It has evolved independently in several plant families, using many different climbing methods, such as: The climbing fetterbush ( Pieris phillyreifolia )
5130-451: The calabash has been used by some motorcyclists as an imitation helmet in an attempt to circumvent motorcycle helmet laws. In South Africa it is commonly used as a drinking vessel and a vessel for carrying food by communities, such as the Bapedi and AmaZulu . Erbore children of Ethiopia wear hats made from the calabash to protect them from the sun. South Africa's FNB Stadium , which hosted
5220-531: The calabash is used by men as a penis sheath . In Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil, calabash gourds are dried and carved into mates (from the Quichua word mathi , adopted into the Spanish language), the traditional container for mate , the caffeinated, tea-like drink brewed from the yerba mate plant. In the region the beverage itself is called mate as well as the calabash from which
5310-554: The chief of the navigation of Spain. Although the proceedings of the Toro-Burgos conferences are missing, it is almost certain that Vespucci articulated his recent 'New World' thesis to his fellow navigators there. During these conferences, Spanish officials seem to have accepted that the Antilles and the known stretch of Central America were not the Indies as they had hoped. Though Columbus still insisted they were. They set out
5400-483: The country, it is also called kaddu in certain parts of country like eastern India. (However, "kaddu" popularly translates to "pumpkin" in northern India.) It can be consumed as a dish with rice or roti for its medicinal benefits. In Gujarat, a traditional Gujarati savoury cake called handvo is made primarily using bottle gourd (in Gujarati, dudhi ), sesame seeds, flour, and often lentils. In Karnataka, bottle gourd
5490-495: The drink horchata . The calabash is frequently used in southern Chinese cuisine in either a stir-fry dish or a soup. In Japan, it is commonly sold in the form of dried, marinated strips known as kanpyō and is used as an ingredient for making makizushi (rolled sushi ). Traditionally in Korea, the inner flesh has been eaten as namul vegetable and the outside cut in half to make bowls. Both fresh and dried flesh of bak
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#17327753093055580-461: The drinking vessels are made. In Peru it is used in a popular practice for the making of mate burilado ; " burilado " is the technique adopted for decorating the mate calabashes. In Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador calabash gourds are used for medicinal purposes. The Inca culture applied symbols from folklore to gourds, this practice is still familiar and valued. Calabash's watertight features allowed it to be often used as container to ship seeds across
5670-497: The earliest record of its occurrence remains the 1884 report of a bottle gourd being recovered from a 12th Dynasty tomb at Thebes dating to ca. 4,000 BP. When considered together, the genetic and archaeological information points toward L. siceraria being independently brought under domestication first in Asia, and more than 4,000 years later, in Africa. The bottle gourd is a commonly cultivated plant in tropical and subtropical areas of
5760-422: The famous Cosmographiae Introductio volume, which includes reprints of Vespucci's letters, comes closest to modernity by placing a completely open sea, with no stretching land fingers, between Asia on the eastern side and the New World. It is represented two times in the same map in a different way: with and without a sea passage in the middle of what is now named Central America on the western side—which, on what
5850-634: The gourd lends itself nicely to the sound of the insect, much like a musical instrument. The musical instrument, hulusi , is a kind of flute made from the gourd. In the Safaradi Jewish culture, the gourd is eaten during Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year's Eve). According to the texts the gourd is eaten as a symbol of tearing apart the enemies who may come and attack. It is called Qaraa, which in Hebrew means "torn" קרע. "שיקרעו אויבנו מעלינו" meaning "may our enemies be torn apart over from us". The plant
5940-406: The growing season and a warm, sunny position, sheltered from the wind. It can be cultivated in small places such as in a pot, and allowed to spread on a trellis or roof. In rural areas, many houses with thatched roofs are covered with the gourd vines. Bottle gourds grow very rapidly and their stems can reach a length of 9 m in the summer, so they need a solid support along the stem if they are to climb
6030-420: The historic or geographic complexity of the world. It is argued that both 'worlds' and the age of Western colonialism rather entered a new stage, as in the ' modern world '. In wine terminology , "New World" uses a particular definition. " New World wines " include not only North American and South American wines, but also those from South Africa , Australia , New Zealand , and all other locations outside
6120-517: The idea that photosynthetic responses are closely related to climbing mechanisms. Temperate twining vines, which twist tightly around supports, are typically poorly adapted for climbing beneath closed canopies due to their smaller support diameter and shade intolerance. In contrast, tendril vines usually grow on the forest floor and onto trees until they reach the surface of the canopy, suggesting that they have greater physiological plasticity. It has also been suggested that twining vines' revolving growth
6210-566: The juice of gourds. The toxic cases are usually due to the gourd being used to make juice, which the drinkers described as being unusually bitter. In three of the lethal cases, the victims were diabetics in their 50s and 60s. In 2018, a healthy woman in her 40s was hospitalized for severe reactions after consuming the juice and died three days later from complications. The plant is not normally toxic when eaten. The excessively bitter (and toxic) gourds are due to improper storage (temperature swings or high temperature) and over-ripening. Boiled calabash
6300-575: The marvels of the New Globe ("Novo Orbe") and the " Western Hemisphere " ("ab occidente hemisphero"). In Columbus's 1499 letter to the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, reporting the results of his third voyage, he relates how the massive waters of South America's Orinoco delta rushing into the Gulf of Paria implied that a previously unknown continent must lie behind it. Columbus proposes that
6390-441: The new goal for Spanish explorers: find a sea passage or strait through the Americas, a path to Asia proper. The term New World was not universally accepted, entering English only relatively late, and has more recently been subject to criticism . While it became generally accepted after Amerigo Vespucci that Christopher Columbus ' discoveries were not Asia but a "New World", the geographic relationship between Europe and
6480-482: The next 45 days if enough nutrients are available. Yield ranges from 35 to 40 tons/ha, per season of 3 months cycle. Like other members of the family Cucurbitaceae , gourds contain cucurbitacins that are known to be cytotoxic at a high concentration. The tetracyclic triterpenoid cucurbitacins present in fruits and vegetables of the cucumber family are responsible for the bitter taste, and could cause stomach ulcers. In extreme cases, people have died from drinking
6570-400: The opinion of the ancients was, that the greater part of the world beyond the equinoctial line to the south was not land, but only sea, which they have called the Atlantic; and even if they have affirmed that any continent is there, they have given many reasons for denying it is inhabited. But this opinion is false, and entirely opposed to the truth. My last voyage has proved it, for I have found
6660-399: The plant to reach sunlight with a minimum investment of energy. This has been a highly successful growth form for plants such as kudzu and Japanese honeysuckle , both of which are invasive exotics in parts of North America. There are some tropical vines that develop skototropism, and grow away from the light, a type of negative phototropism . Growth away from light allows the vine to reach
6750-462: The possibility that the islands of the Antilles discovered earlier by Christopher Columbus might still be the eastern edges of Asia, as Columbus continued to insist until his death in 1506. A 1504 globe , possibly created by Leonardo da Vinci , depicts the New World as only South America , excluding North America and Central America . A conference of navigators known as Junta de Navegantes
6840-432: The shape of the fruit. Sometimes the female flowers drop off without growing into a gourd due to the failure of pollination if there is no night pollinator (probably a kind of moth) in the garden. Hand pollination can be used to solve the problem. Pollens are around 60 microns in length. First crop is ready for harvest within two months; first flowers open in about 45 days from sowing. Each plant can yield 1 fruit per day for
6930-675: The spring of 1503, Vespucci authored the Mundus Novus letter in Lisbon and sent it to Lorenzo in Florence , with the famous opening paragraph: In passed days I wrote very fully to you of my return from new countries, which have been found and explored with the ships, at the cost and by the command of this Most Serene King of Portugal; and it is lawful to call it a new world, because none of these countries were known to our ancestors and to all who hear about them they will be entirely new. For
7020-506: The tendrils are highly sensitive to touch and the coiling action is mediated by the hormones octadecanoids, jasmonates and indole-3-acetic acid . The touch stimulus and hormones may interact via volatile compounds or internal oscillation patterns. Research has found the presence of ion translocating ATPases in the Bryonia dioica species of plants, which has implications for a possible ion mediation tendril curling mechanism. In response to
7110-404: The tendrils of perennial vine Cayratia japonica are more likely to coil around nearby plants of another species than nearby plants of the same species in natural and experimental settings. This ability, which has only been previously documented in roots, demonstrates the vine's ability to distinguish whether another plant is of the same species as itself or a different one. In tendrilled vines,
7200-561: The traditional wine-growing regions of Europe, North Africa and the Near East . The usefulness of these terms for wines though have been questioned as arbitrary and too generalized. In a biological context, species can be divided into those in the Old World ( Palearctic , Afrotropic ) and those in the New World ( Nearctic , Neotropic ). Biological taxonomists often attach the "New World" label to groups of species found exclusively in
7290-733: The translantic slave trade. They were also used by enslaved people to carry seeds for planting on plantation fields. On plantations that held enslaved African Americans, the Calabash symbolized freedom—as alluded to in the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" that referenced the Big Dipper constellation that was used to guide the Underground Railroad. Vine A vine (from Latin vīnea ' grapevine , vineyard '; from vīnum 'wine')
7380-431: The unique ability to climb. Vines are able to grow in both deep shade and full sun due to their uniquely wide range of phenotypic plasticity . This climbing action prevents shading by neighbors and allows the vine to grow out of reach of herbivores. The environment where a vine can grow successfully is determined by the climbing mechanism of a vine and how far it can spread across supports. There are many theories supporting
7470-475: The watering stop at Bezeguiche in present-day Dakar , Senegal , as Vespucci was on his expedition to chart the coast of newly discovered Brazil and the ships of the Second Portuguese India armada , commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral , were returning from India . Having already visited the Americas in prior years, Vespucci likely found it difficult to reconcile what he had already seen in
7560-489: The west were not the edges of Asia, as asserted by Christopher Columbus , but rather an entirely different continent that represented a "New World". According to Mundus Novus , Vespucci realized that he was in a "New World" on 17 August 1501 as he arrived in Brazil and compared the nature and people of the place with what Portuguese sailors told him about Asia . A chance meeting between two different expeditions occurred at
7650-559: The world, and was eventually domesticated in southern Africa. Stands of L. siceraria , which may be source plants and not merely domesticated stands, were reported in Zimbabwe in 2004. This apparent wild plant produces thinner-walled fruit that, when dried, would not endure the rigors of use on long journeys as a water container. Today's gourd may owe its tough, waterproof wall to selection pressures over its long history of domestication . Gourds were cultivated in Africa, Asia, Europe, and
7740-406: Was assembled by the Spanish monarchs at Toro in 1505 and continued at Burgos in 1508 to digest all existing information about the Indies, come to an agreement on what had been discovered, and set out the future goals of Spanish exploration. Amerigo Vespucci attended both conferences, and seems to have had an outsized influence on them—at Burgos, he ended up being appointed the first piloto mayor ,
7830-489: Was brought into the New World at the end of the ice age by the native hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indians , which they based on a study of the genetics of archaeological samples. This study purportedly showed that gourds in American archaeological finds were more closely related to Asian variants than to African ones. In 2014 this theory was repudiated based on a more thorough genetic study. Researchers more completely examined
7920-487: Was mapped. The discovery of the Bering Straits in the early 18th century, established that Asia and North America were not connected by land. But some European maps of the 16th century, including the 1533 Johannes Schöner globe , still continued to depict North America as connected by a land bridge to Asia. In 1524, the term "New World" was used by Giovanni da Verrazzano in a record of his voyage that year along
8010-653: Was said to carry medicine that could cure any illness and never emptied, which he dispensed to the poor and needy. Some folk myths say the "gourd had spirals of smoke ascend from it, denoting his power of setting his spirit free from his body," and that it "served as a bedroom for the night..." The gourd is also an attribute of the deity Shouxing and a symbol of longevity. Dried calabash were also used as containers for liquids, often liquors or medicines. Calabash gourds were also grown in earthen molds to form different shapes with imprinted floral or arabesque designs. Molded gourds were also dried to house pet crickets . The texture of
8100-461: Was the theme of the satirical song "Misalliance", written and sung by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (but the lyrics confuse the direction of twining, describing honeysuckle as right-handed and bindweed as left-handed). The term "vine" also applies to Cucurbitaceae like cucumbers where botanists refer to creeping vines; in commercial agriculture the natural tendency of coiling tendrils to attach themselves to pre-existing structures or espaliers
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