Cucurbita maxima
Cucurbita palmata
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
coyote gourd, coyote gourd or melon, coyote melon
prostrate, often rooting adventitiously at nodes, to 2 m, villous-hirsute to hispid-hirsute with deflexed hairs, glabrescent and muriculate on angles in age;
tendrils mostly 3(–5)-branched 1–1.5 cm above base, retrorsely hispid, gland-tipped.
petiole (2–)3–7 cm, densely hispid-hirsute with short, deflexed hairs mixed with pustulate hairs;
blade suborbiculate to depressed-ovate, palmately 5-lobed, sinuses 1/2–2/3 to petiole, 3–7 × 4–10 cm, usually broader than long or equally so, base cordate, lobes lanceolate-acuminate to triangular or triangular-lanceolate, sometimes irregularly sublobed, margins remotely crenate to remotely serrate-crenate, surfaces appressed-hispid abaxially and muriculate, hirsute-strigillose to hispid-strigose adaxially, midvein and major veins whitish adaxially from densely hispidulous-strigillose with white hairs, eglandular.
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 shallowly 5-ribbed, not abruptly expanded at point of fruit attachment, 3–8 cm, spongy.
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 cupulate to campanulate, 2–7(–20) mm;
sepals linear-subulate, 2–10 mm;
corolla golden yellow to yellow, tubular-campanulate, 2.5–5 cm;
anther filaments glabrous;
ovary densely pubescent.
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.
dull white, ovate to oblong, 9–14 mm, margins thickened-raised, surfaces smooth or slightly rough.
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.
dull green, narrowly 10-striped and white-mottled, ellipsoid-globose to globose or depressed-globose, 7–10 cm, smooth.
= 40.
= 40.
Cucurbita maxima
Cucurbita palmata
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.)
Some plants of Cucurbita palmata from Baja California and California have uniformly whitish gray, hirsute-strigillose adaxial leaf surfaces; these have been recognized as C. californica. Most plants from Arizona and eastern San Bernardino County, California, and some from elsewhere in Baja California and California, have the midrib and major veins whitish like those of C. digitata.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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