Stats

Lifespan: Annual
Size: Medium
Diet: Photosynthetic
Activity: Diurnal
Social: Solitary
Biome: Temperate grassland
Range: Americas (cultivated)
Movement: Sessile
Breeding: Seeds
Defense: None
Status: Rare

About

The tender warm-season squashes harvested young with edible skin — zucchini, yellow crookneck, and scalloped pattypan among them. A fast, sprawling annual vine with big lobed leaves and bright yellow flowers (themselves edible), it fruits heavily all summer, which is exactly how it got its name.

Life cycle

1.
seed
A dormant seed waits for water and warmth before germinating.
2.
sprout
A first shoot emerges with cotyledon leaves and a tap root reaching down.
3.
sapling
A young plant grows true leaves and a stem or trunk, putting on height each season.
4.
mature
Fully grown, flowering or fruiting at adult size.

Learn more

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Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Cucurbitales
Family: Cucurbitaceae
Genus: Cucurbita
Species: Cucurbita melopepo