American Squashes

zucchini and yellow summer squash

Sorting out the squashes is a job for experts, which I am not. They are wonderfully confused.

“True squashes” are plants in the genus Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae, cucumber family). About 15 species make up Cucurbita, all of them native to the Americas. 

Melons, such as cantalope genus Cucumis, watermelon, genus Citrullus (blog about watermelon) and others--all the melons--are from Asia, Africa or Europe. 

Plant Story--Perplexing Pumpkins

We have no problem recognizing pumpkins

and yet, botanically they're difficult.

Four plant species are "pumpkins": Cucurbita moscata, Cucurbita argyrosperma, C. maxima and Cucurbita pepo.

That would not be particularly confusing, except that those same plant species also give us summer and winter squashes. Thus, different varieties of Cucurbita pepo, for example, are acorn squash, zucchini and sugar pumpkins.