Bottle gourd

Catalogue Type

Seed Catalogue

Scientific Name

Lagenaria siceraria

Family

Cucurbitaceace

Distinguishing Characters

Seeds are white, oblong, compressed, slightly tapered, slightly 2-horned on the shoulders, 7-20 mm long.

Photo of Seed

Description

Bottle gourds are also called "calabashes", they are sometimes confused with the hard, hollow fruits of the unrelated calabash tree, whose fruits are also used to make utensils, containers, and musical instruments.

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.