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Gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and '' Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, ''Lagenaria siceraria'', have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BCE. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food. Terminology ''Gourd'' is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons. More specifically, ''gourd'' refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera '' Lagenaria'' and ''Cucurbita'', or also to their hollow, dried-out shell. There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from the genus ''Cucurbi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lagenaria Siceraria
Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil, container, or a musical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh. Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically called calabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course of human migration, or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bottle Gourd
Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed as a vegetable, or harvested mature to be dried and used as a utensil, container, or a musical instrument. When it is fresh, the fruit has a light green smooth skin and white flesh. Calabash fruits have a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle-shaped, or slim and serpentine, and they can grow to be over a metre long. Rounder varieties are typically called calabash gourds. The gourd was one of the world's first cultivated plants grown not primarily for food, but for use as containers. The bottle gourd may have been carried from Asia to Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the course of human migration, or by seeds floating across the oceans inside the gourd. It has been proven to have been globally domesticated (an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wax Gourd
''Benincasa hispida'', the wax gourd, also called ash gourd, white gourd, winter gourd, winter melon, tallow gourd, ash pumpkin, Chinese preserving melon is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. It is the only member of the genus ''Benincasa''. It is native to South and Southeast Asia. The wax gourd is widely grown throughout Asia, including Java and Japan, the places where it is thought to have originated. One variety of the plant, called ''chi qua'' (''Benincasa hispida'' var. ''chieh-qua''), is commonly used in Asian cuisine. Etymology The name "winter melon" that is sometimes given to this plant is based on the Chinese name (); however, the character () can also mean “gourd” or “squash.” It is likely that the name “melon” is given because this gourd is sometimes candied or made into a sweet tea. The name "wax gourd" comes from the wax coating in the fruit's skin. Description The plant grows thick vines with coarse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gourds - Grown In The Garden
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, ''Lagenaria siceraria'', have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BCE. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food. Terminology ''Gourd'' is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons. More specifically, ''gourd'' refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera ''Lagenaria'' and ''Cucurbita'', or also to their hollow, dried-out shell. There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from the genus ''Cucurbita' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake Gourd
''Trichosanthes cucumerina'' is a tropical or subtropical vine. Its variety ''T. cucumerina'' var. ''anguina'' raised for its strikingly long fruit. In Asia, it is eaten immature as a vegetable much like the summer squash and in Africa, the reddish pulp of mature snake gourd is used as an economical substitute for tomato. Common names for the cultivated variety include snake gourd, serpent gourd, chichinda and padwal. ''Trichosanthes cucumerina'' is found in the wild across much of South and Southeast Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar(Burma) and southern China ( Guangxi and Yunnan). It is also regarded as native in northern Australia. and naturalized in Florida, parts of Africa and on various islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Formerly, the cultivated form was considered a distinct species, ''T. anguina'', but it is now generally regarded as conspecific with the wild populations, as they freely interbreed: * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cucurbita
''Cucurbita'' (Latin for gourd) is a genus of herbaceous fruits in the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae (also known as ''cucurbits'' or ''cucurbi''), native to the Andes and Mesoamerica. Five edible species are grown and consumed for their flesh and seeds. They are variously known as squash, pumpkin, or gourd, depending on species, variety, and local parlance. Other kinds of gourd, also called bottle-gourds, are native to Africa and belong to the genus ''Lagenaria'', which is in the same family and subfamily as ''Cucurbita'', but in a different tribe. These other gourds are used as utensils or vessels, and their young fruits are eaten much like those of the ''Cucurbita'' species. Most ''Cucurbita'' species are herbaceous vines that grow several meters in length and have tendrils, but non-vining "bush" cultivars of ''C. pepo'' and ''C. maxima'' have also been developed. The yellow or orange flowers on a ''Cucurbita'' plant are of two types: female and male. The female flower ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitter Melon
''Momordica charantia'' (commonly called bitter melon; Goya; bitter apple; bitter gourd; bitter squash; balsam-pear; with many more names listed below) is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean for its edible fruit. Its many varieties differ substantially in the shape and bitterness of the fruit. Bitter melon originated in Africa where it was a dry-season staple food of ǃKung hunter-gatherers. Wild or semi-domesticated variants spread across Asia in prehistory, and it was likely fully domesticated in Southeast Asia. It is widely used in the cuisines of East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Alternative names Bitter melon has many names in other languages, which have sometimes entered English as loanwords. Following are a few: Description This herbaceous, tendril-bearing vine grows up to in length. It bears simple, alternate leaves across, with three to seven deeply separated lobes. Eac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffalo Gourd
''Cucurbita foetidissima'' is a tuberous xerophytic plant found in the central and southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It has numerous common names, including: buffalo gourd, calabazilla, chilicote, coyote gourd, fetid gourd, fetid wild pumpkin, Missouri gourd, prairie gourd, stinking gourd, wild gourd, and wild pumpkin. The type specimen was collected from Mexico by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland sometime before 1817. In Latin, foetidissima means ill smelling. The buffalo gourd has evolved in the semiarid regions and is well-adapted to desert environments. It contains high amounts of protein and carbohydrates and yields abundant oil. The carbohydrates that are formed in the tap root have led to the idea of growing the plant for biofuel. The fruit is consumed by both humans and animals. When mature, a stage marked by increasing desiccation of vine, leaves, fruit-stem, and fruit, the fruit begins its final gourd stage. Geographic location and genetics make ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luffa
''Luffa'' is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines in the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae). In everyday non-technical usage, the luffa, also spelled loofah, usually refers to the fruits of the species '' Luffa aegyptiaca'' and '' Luffa acutangula''. It is cultivated and eaten as a vegetable, but must be harvested at a young stage of development to be edible. The vegetable is popular in India, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. When the fruit is fully ripened, it is very fibrous. The fully developed fruit is the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge which is used in bathrooms and kitchens. Names The name ''luffa'' was taken by European botanists in the 17th century from the Egyptian-Arabic name ''lūf''.The plant name "luffa" was introduced to Western botany nomenclature by the botanist Johann Vesling (died 1649), who visited Egypt in the late–1620s and described the plant under cultivation with artificial irrigation in Egypt. In 1706 the botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luffa
''Luffa'' is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines in the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae). In everyday non-technical usage, the luffa, also spelled loofah, usually refers to the fruits of the species '' Luffa aegyptiaca'' and '' Luffa acutangula''. It is cultivated and eaten as a vegetable, but must be harvested at a young stage of development to be edible. The vegetable is popular in India, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. When the fruit is fully ripened, it is very fibrous. The fully developed fruit is the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge which is used in bathrooms and kitchens. Names The name ''luffa'' was taken by European botanists in the 17th century from the Egyptian-Arabic name ''lūf''.The plant name "luffa" was introduced to Western botany nomenclature by the botanist Johann Vesling (died 1649), who visited Egypt in the late–1620s and described the plant under cultivation with artificial irrigation in Egypt. In 1706 the botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cucurbita Pepo
''Cucurbita pepo'' is a cultivated plant of the genus ''Cucurbita''. It yields varieties of winter squash and pumpkin, but the most widespread varieties belong to the subspecies ''Cucurbita pepo'' subsp. ''pepo'', called summer squash. It has been domesticated in the Americas for thousands of years. Some authors maintain that ''C. pepo'' is derived from '' C. texana'', while others suggest that ''C. texana'' is merely feral ''C. pepo''. They have a wide variety of uses, especially as a food source and for medical conditions. ''C. pepo'' seems more closely related to '' C. fraterna'', though disagreements exist about the exact nature of that connection, too. It is a host species for the melonworm moth, the squash vine borer, and the pickleworm. They are also the preferred pollen for squash bees. History ''C. pepo'' is one of the oldest, if not the oldest domesticated species. The oldest known locations are in southern Mexico in Oaxaca 8,000–10,000 years ago and Ocampo, T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malabar Gourd
''Cucurbita ficifolia'' is a species of squash, grown for its edible seeds, fruit, and greens. It has common names including Asian pumpkin, black seed squash, chilacayote, cidra, fig-leaf gourd, and Malabar gourd. Compared to other domesticated species in its genus, investigators have noted that samples of ''C. ficifolia'' from throughout its range are relatively similar to one other in morphology and genetic composition. Variations do occur in fruit and seed color, some isozymes, and photoperiod sensitivity. This species is grown widely from Argentina and Chile to Mexico. It is also cultivated in regions of the world including India, Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Angola. No named agricultural cultivars have been recognized. Research suggests that ''C. ficifolia'' represents an earlier evolutionary branch than the other major cultivated ''Cucurbita'' species, but biosystematic investigations have established that ''C. ficifolia'' is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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