Pumpkin Trivia
(Via EnjoyGardening)
first published October 25th, 2007
I’ve always enjoyed growing pumpkins. There is something magical about a plant that all summer long conceals its bounty before revealing its massive fruit with the arrival of the first crisp fall frost. Since Halloween is just around the corner, what better time to reveal some interesting and quirky pumpkin trivia that just may explain its association with this spooky holiday?
Let’s start off with the common name pumpkin (Pepon for you Latin lovers). Pumpkin is pretty much interchangeable with the name squash. Neither pumpkin nor squash have precise botanical meanings; so really, the winning pumpkin in the world’s largest pumpkin contest could just as easily be called the world’s largest squash. Technically a pumpkin’s fruit is really a berry until the hard rind forms and then its proper name is a pepo. If you are tired of calling a pumpkin by its English name, impress your family and friends with names like potiron (French), pompeon (Dutch), zentnerkurbis (German) and, for a real tongue twister, centnergraeskar (Danish). Of course, it’s just not that impressive if one of these languages is your mother tongue.
What Rhymes with Pumpkin?
Speaking of the world’s largest squash…er pumpkin, a new world record was set just a few weeks ago. Joe Jutras of Rhode Island grew a whopping 766 kilograms (1689 pounds) pumpkin. It wasn’t that long ago that growing a thousand pound pumpkin was seen as nearly impossible. Now there are many prizewinners that top that mark frequently. And what do you do with these massive pumpkins once the contests are over? Well, hollow them out, of course, and convert them into boats for regatta races. Several towns in Canada and the United States now have pumpkin boat races and apparently it’s the five hundred pound-plus boats that are the most seaworthy—I think I feel a new nursery rhyme coming on.
Although the size of some pumpkins is truly impressive, as a kid growing these plants on the farm, I observed that during the summer, the vines themselves could grow nearly 30 centimetres in a single day. I’m sure with some varieties in ideal climates, this number might even be a bit conservative. Add the fact that pumpkins possess cucurbitoid teeth—that is pointed projections on their leaf edges—and you have great fodder for a Halloween horror flick.
Pumpkin Foolery
Pumpkins aren’t averse to a little gender trickery. Their male flowers display many of the characteristics of female flowers, and convincingly fool pollinating insects into visiting them thereby increasing the odds of successful cross pollination with their female counterparts…I guess it’s a sort of male-flowers-in-drag scenario.
Under the category of Believe It or Not is the bit of trivia that pumpkins can get measles. Well, not the same measles that we humans get, but measles nonetheless. In the fall, if nights are cool and humidity is high enough, pumpkins will develop brown 1–3 mm spots. This condition, called guttation, is nothing more than root pressure pushing water through the fruit’s skin, causing the surface cells to split resulting in bumpy, unattractive, but non-contagious, spots.
Bitter Lessons
Pumpkins are members of the cucurbitaceae family, which includes, among others, cucumbers, zucchini, melons and squash. All members of the cucurbit family produce a toxin called cucurbitacin which is really quite poisonous to humans. Whenever, you taste a cucumber, or a pumpkin for that matter, that is bitter, you are ingesting a bit of this toxin. Fortunately, because this substance is so nasty tasting, the level of cucurbitacin that would be harmful to humans would make the fruit completely inedible, so there’s little chance of a case of ‘poisoning by pumpkin’.
Finally, a word of cautionary trivia based on some very painful personal experience. While rotting pumpkins that have been missed or discarded in the field are a lot of fun to kick and watch explode (at least they were when I was 12 years old), do not, I repeat, do not attempt to kick a frozen pumpkin. The only explosion that will occur will be that of the exploding pain in your foot.
