Specimen Spotlight - Cucurbita pepo

Cucurbita pepo L., in the family Cucurbitaceae, is a diverse species often cultivated for its edible fruits. This species has a large number of taxonomic and horticultural varieties grown around the world. Commonly known cultivated varieties include summer squash, winter squash, zucchini, acorn squash, and pumpkin. Likely native to the region of present-day Mexico, it is believed C. pepo was first domesticated around 10,000 years ago.

Seen here is a lovely specimen of Cucurbita pepo var. melopepo (Linnaeus) Alefeld from Oakes Ames’ garden in North Easton, Massachusetts collected in 1941. The specimen is part of our Economic Herbarium of Oakes Ames (ECON) collection, which consists of approximately 40,000 specimens of economically important plants of cultivated and wild origin, many of which were donated by Ames upon his retirement in 1941.