| The pumpkin (Latin: Cucurbita) is a generic name for plants of the Cucurbitaceous family. Annual or perennial rigidly-scabrous or villous herbages; crawling on the ground and scrambling with the help of the brachiferous tendrils of the stems, coated by more or less huge lobar leaves. Huge, yellow or white flowers stand individually or fibro-vascular bundles form; unisex (monocotyledonous plants). Campaniform or funnel-campaniform bell and corolla in 0-5 (seldom 4-7) fractions; stamens were mated with anthers in the head, twisted anthers; In the female flower, three-five staminodes and pistils with a thick short column, with three or five lobar stigma and with lower three-five sockets are where many seeded sets are grown; the fruit, a big berry (pepo), generally with a hard outer layer (cortex) and with large flattened, bordered thick seeds without protein.
Types
There are up to 10 types which are wild in the warm climates of Asia, Africa and America; out of them three are annual and seven are perennial; many types are cultivated as decorative plants (for example figure pumpkins) or for the sake of the fruit. The most usual from perennial types are:
* The fig leaf pumpkin (Cucurbita ficifolia Bche or Cucurbita melanospema A. Br.), with leaves similar to fig leaves, and with huge (up to 40 cm in thickness) rounded, egg type multi colored fruits with a sweet pulp and black seeds;
* The stinking pumpkin (Cucurbita foetidissima Kth. or Cucurbita реrennis А. Gr., Cucumis perennis), which originated from North America growing with twisting stems up to 10m in height, with pulpy, ash gray, rigid-villous, whole triangular leaves, with small (chicken egg) rounded, dark-green bitter fruits.
Variability of pumpkins
Among the annual types, the most frequently cultivated type is Cucurbita Реро L. (otherwise known as Cucurbita verrucosa L. , Covifera, Cucurbita pyxidaris DC. etc., or the ordinary kitchen pumpkin); this pumpkin has a creeping stem with huge hard leaves and fruits of different shapes and sizes; there are 100 different sub types of this pumpkin, the origin of which is authentically known (North America); the variety differs in shape, sizes and in the color of the fruit, some of them give edible fruits and others are cultivated as decorative plants (so called "figured pumpkins"), for example:
* Giromontia Alef. (Long cylindrical or conical fruits with smooth or bumpy longitudinal ribs);
* Citrullina Alef. (Elliptic or egg shaped, smooth or bumpy fruits, their length is two times larer than their width);
* Melopepo Alef. (Small or average in size, flattened or almost sphere shaped, smooth, completely soft edible fruits);
* Clypeata Alef. or depressa (a decorative pumpkin with longitudinal ribs and hard skinny fruits),
* Pomiformis Alef. (Apple or orange pumpkin with non-edible fruits similar to an apple or orange),
* Piriformis Alef. (Pear pumpkin, with non-edible fruits similar to pear),
* Verrucosa L. (warty pumpkin with warty non-edible fruits of different sizes) etc.
* Cucurbita maxima Duch. (Cucurbita turbaniformis, pileiformis) giving edible fruits of different shapes and different sizes, for example: turbaniformis Aief., with fruits like a turban ("turban pumpkin"), ecoronata (for example, 100 pound pumpkins, mammoth, almond, Boulogne vegetable marrow etc.) — fruits without outgrowth in the center etc.; the following types are also related: without lengthy creeping sprouts, the so called cluster pumpkin Cucurbita moschata Duch., musk or Egypt pumpkin with a musk smell is cultivated in warm countries.
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Halloween is just 3 weeks away, and that is a favorite time for pumpkin producers. Over 90% of yearly grown pumpkins in the United States are sold in the last three weeks of October. Two main reasons to love pumpkins are Jack O'Lantern and pumpkin pie.
