Cucurbita

Cucurbita is a genus of flowering plants in the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, native to the Americas. It includes pumpkins, squash, and zucchini.

Cucurbitaceae: The flowering-plant family that includes cucumbers, melons, gourds, and squash. Cucurbita is one of this family’s genera.
Plant domestication in the Americas: The process by which Indigenous peoples in the Americas transformed wild plants into cultivated crops. Cucurbita belongs to the early history of American crop domestication.
Winter squash: A group of mature Cucurbita fruits with hard rinds and seeds, harvested for storage and eating. Many Cucurbita species are cultivated as winter squash.
Cucumis: A gourd-family genus that includes cucumbers and melons. Its familiar crops resemble Cucurbita crops but belong to a separate genus.
Cucurbita pepo: A Cucurbita species that includes zucchini, acorn squash, and many pumpkins. It contains several familiar crops with strikingly different forms.
Cucurbita pepo domestication: The domestication history of Cucurbita pepo, among the earliest crops cultivated in the Americas. Its archaeological record documents early squash cultivation.
Summer squash: Tender-fleshed Cucurbita fruits harvested immature, including zucchini and pattypan squash. Cucurbita pepo supplies many widely grown summer-squash cultivars.
Lagenaria: A gourd-family genus that includes the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria. Bottle gourds are often called squash or gourds but are not Cucurbita.
Cucurbita maxima: A Cucurbita species that includes many large winter squashes and giant pumpkins. Its cultivars include some of the genus’s largest fruits.
Cucurbita moschata domestication: The process by which American communities domesticated Cucurbita moschata from wild ancestors. Its separate domestication history helps explain diversity within the genus.

Linked from 5 pages

Pumpkin pieNarrower topic: Pumpkins belong to this New World plant genus.