Gourd
.Used in the Middle Ages for corks (Orlando Furioso, x. 106); used also for a cup or bottle. (French, gourde; Latin, cucurbita.)
Jonah’s gourd [kikiven], the Palma Christi, called in Egypt kĭki. Niebuhr speaks of a specimen which he himself saw near a rivulet, which in October “rose eight feet in five monthsʹ time.” And Volney says, “Wherever plants have water the rapidity of their growth is prodigious. In Cairo,” he adds, “there is a species of gourd which in twentyfour hours will send out shoots four inches long.” (Travels, vol. i. p. 71.)
