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Queensland blue or Atlantic giant or Mammoth pumpkin, winter marrow, winter or Hubbard or blue Hubbard or golden Hubbard or Turk's turban or banana or Queensland blue or buttercup or Hokkaido squash, winter squash

Asian pumpkin, chilacayote, cidra, fig leaf or blackseed squash, fig leaf or Malabar gourd, figleaf gourd, shark fin melon, Thai marrow

Habit Plants annual or short-lived perennial; roots taproots.
Stems

prostrate or climbing, often rooting adventitiously at nodes, to 25 m, usually sparsely hirsute with puberulent understory of gland-tipped hairs, sometimes without hirsute overstory, without pustulate-based hairs;

tendrils 3–4-branched 3–5 cm above base, glabrous, eglandular.

Leaves

petiole 8–20 cm, sparsely hirsute to hispid-hirsute, without pustulate-based hairs;

blade sometimes mottled with silvery green, suborbiculate to ovate or reniform, palmately 3–5-lobed, 11–16 × 15–26 cm, usually broader than long or equally so, base cordate, sometimes shallowly and irregularly toothed, lobes with sinuses shallow or ± 1/2 to petiole, obovate to ovate, depressed-ovate, or triangular, midveins of leaf lobes not distinctly elongate-whitened, margins closely mucronulate to denticulate, surfaces short-villous to pubescent, eglandular.

Peduncles

in fruit terete, not prominently ribbed, expanded along whole length, not abruptly expanded at point of fruit attachment, relatively soft and corky-thickened.

in fruit 5-ribbed, slightly or not expanded at point of fruit attachment, hardened, woody.

Flowers

hypanthium campanulate, 20–25 mm;

sepals subulate to linear, 5–20 mm;

corolla yellow to orange-yellow, campanulate, 5–7(–8) cm;

anther filaments glabrous;

ovary pubescent.

hypanthium campanulate, 5–10 mm;

sepals linear-lanceolate, not foliaceous, 5–15 mm;

corolla yellow to yellow-orange, tubular-campanulate, 6–12 cm (staminate at shorter end of range);

anther filaments sparsely short-villous, hairs viscid-glandular;

ovary densely pubescent.

Seeds

whitish to gray or pale brown, suborbiculate to broadly elliptic or obovate, 12–22(–32) mm, margins raised-thickened or not, sometimes slightly darkened, surfaces smooth or slightly rough.

usually dark brown to black, sometimes whitish, ovate to ovate-elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 15–25 mm, margins raised-thickened and smooth, surfaces smooth.

Pepos

green to gray-green with cream stripes or mottling, golden yellow to orange, dark purplish green or bluish, blackish purple, or white to grayish, globose to depressed-globose to ovoid or obovoid, oblong-cylindric, or flattened-cylindric, 10–40 cm, smooth, flesh yellow to orange, not bitter.

(1) light or dark green, with or without longitudinal white lines or stripes distally, (2) irregularly, often linearly mottled, green and white, or (3) whitish to cream, globose to broadly ovoid or ovoid-elliptic, (15–)20–50 cm, smooth, flesh usually white, sweet.

2n

= 40.

= 40.

Cucurbita maxima

Cucurbita ficifolia

Phenology Flowering Jun–Oct. Flowering Jul–Oct.
Habitat Abandoned agricultural fields, fields, roadsides, disturbed sites, trash heaps Old habitations, open woods
Elevation 50–200 m (200–700 ft) 100–1500 m (300–4900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AR; GA; MA; ME; MI; NC; NY; OH; PA; SC; UT; VA; VT; WI; South America; West Indies [Introduced in North America; introduced also elsewhere in South America (Argentina), Europe (Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Spain), Pacific Islands (New Zealand), Australia]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
CA; South America [Introduced in North America; introduced also in Mexico, Central America, Europe (England, Germany, Spain), Asia, Pacific Islands (Galapagos Islands, New Zealand)]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Cucurbita andreana Naudin, a wild species native to Argentina and Bolivia, hybridizes readily with C. maxima and is its ancestor (O. I. Sanjur et al. 2002); it sometimes is recognized as C. maxima subsp. andreana (Naudin) Filov.

Some fruits of Cucurbita maxima have a high sugar content and are used for making pies, and they are popular as a soup, especially in Brazil and Africa.

All of the giant pumpkins in weigh-off contests are derived from Cucurbita maxima, as are some of the Halloween pumpkins. In 1904, the largest pumpkin was 403 pounds, and winners increased relatively little to 459 pounds in 1980. A rapid increase in size began in 1981, with the champion at 493.5 pounds; from this individual’s lineage came seeds for the Atlantic Giant cultivar, which has contributed since to winners burgeoning in size. The first giant pumpkin over 1000 pounds (1061 pounds) was grown in 1996; by 2009 the winner was 1725 pounds and in 2010, 1810 pounds.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Cucurbita ficifolia is included here on the basis of two collections from California: one from Ventura County in 1968 from the site of an old habitation at about 50 m; the other from San Bernardino County in 1948 from a wooded area at about 1400 m.

The wild ancestor of Cucurbita ficifolia is not known, but it grows in cool, high-elevation ecological zones and is considered to have originated in South America (M. Nee 1990; O. I. Sanjur et al. 2002), whence the only reliable archaeological records.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 6, p. 56. FNA vol. 6, p. 57.
Parent taxa Cucurbitaceae > Cucurbita Cucurbitaceae > Cucurbita
Sibling taxa
C. digitata, C. ficifolia, C. foetidissima, C. melopepo, C. moschata, C. okeechobeensis, C. palmata, C. pepo
C. digitata, C. foetidissima, C. maxima, C. melopepo, C. moschata, C. okeechobeensis, C. palmata, C. pepo
Name authority Duchesne: Essai Hist. Nat. Courges, 7, 12. (1786) Bouché: Verh. Vereins. Beförd. Gartenbaues Königl. Preuss. Staaten 12: 205. (1837)
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