Cucurbita pepo
Cucurbita pepo subsp. pepo
field pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin/squash
calabaza, field pumpkin
creeping or climbing, rooting adventitiously at nodes, to 3 m, hispid with persistent, strongly pustulate-based hairs and a hispidulous-hirsutulous understory;
tendrils 2–7-branched 1–5 cm above base, hispidulous to hirsutulous, eglandular.
petiole 5–20(–24) cm, pustulate-hispid (pustulate-based) and hispidulous-hirsutulous;
blade sometimes white-spotted at vein junctions, broadly ovate-cordate to triangular-cordate or reniform, shallowly to deeply palmately (3–)5–7-lobed, 20–30 × 20–35 cm, usually broader than long or equally so, base cordate, lobes ovate-deltate to obovate or obovate-rhombic, midveins of leaf lobes not distinctly elongate-whitened, margins denticulate to serrate-denticulate, surfaces hirsute, hirsute-strigillose, villous-strigose, or hispidulous-scabrous, eglandular.
in fruit 5-ribbed, not or very gradually expanded at point of fruit attachment, hardened, woody.
hypanthium campanulate, 8–12 mm;
sepals linear to subulate-linear, 8–25 mm;
corolla yellow to golden yellow or orange, tubular-campanulate, 4–10 cm;
anther filaments glabrous;
ovary villous.
whitish to cream or tawny, narrowly to broadly elliptic to obovate, rarely orbiculate, 7–15(–26) mm, margins raised-thickened, surface ± smooth.
wholly light to dark green, green with white stripes, or minutely cream- or green-speckled to yellow, orange, or bicolored green and yellow, globose or depressed-globose to ovoid, obovoid, ellipsoid-ovoid, broadly ellipsoid, slightly pyriform, cushion-shaped, or cylindric, 5–10(–25) cm, usually smooth or ribbed, rarely verrucose, flesh whitish to yellowish or pale orange, soft, not bitter.
= 40.
Cucurbita pepo
Cucurbita pepo subsp. pepo
Subspecies 2 (1 in the flora).
Archaeological and molecular-genetic research, especially data from mitochondrial DNA and RAPD studies (O. I Sanjur et al. 2002; D. S. Decker et al. 2002b) and earlier isozymic and chloroplast DNA studies (for example, Decker et al. 1993), indicates that Cucurbita pepo in the broad sense includes two lineages: (1) C. pepo in the strict sense, a Mexican lineage of domesticates that differs from plants generally identified previously as C. pepo subsp. ovifera (here as C. melopepo) by a derived molecular feature (a difference in three adjacent base pairs) that occurs also in the C. moschata and C. sororia L. H. Bailey and C. argyrosperma Huber groups, and was shared presumably by the wild ancestor of C. pepo, which is unknown and possibly extinct; and (2) C. melopepo, a lineage of northeastern Mexico and the eastern Unites States in which the three wild varieties (var. fraterna, var. ozarkana, var. texana) and the domesticated variety (var. ovifera) share identical mitochondrial DNA sequences (Sanjur et al.) as well as similarities in isozymes and other kinds of DNA. Domesticates of C. pepo and C. melopepo are independently derived lineages.
Cucurbita pepo subsp. gumala Teppner comprises domesticates from Guatemala and adjacent southern Mexico and apparently is native there (H. Teppner 2000, 2004). The plants have depressed-globose pepos 13–20 cm in diameter with extremely thick rind, ripening orange-yellow, and with orange flesh. Teppner observed that the fruits of subsp. gumala are similar to the ancient ones from Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca.
Cultivars of Cucurbita pepo with edible pepos have been divided into eight groups (H. S. Paris 1986, 1989; see also E. F. Castetter 1925), based mainly on pepo morphology. Pepos of cultivated forms differ from those of their wild ancestors in their larger size and more variable shape, less durable and more varicolored rinds, and less fibrous, nonbitter flesh.
Plants of Cucurbita pepo are likely to be found as non-persistent waifs all over the world, wherever they can be grown in temperate and upland tropical areas.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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