So last year we had this giant vine grow out of the compost, it made loads of yellow fruit with light green ends, pretty large ( these were picked on the small-ish side so I could put them in cake), they ripen to a bright orange. Huge leaves on the vine. Is it a C. mixta? Or a pepo? The stem doesn’t really look pepo to me, it’s more moschata.
Oh and the leaves were green until they succumbed to powdery mildew. But only after the plant wandered across most of the lawn, making roots as it went
Cute! The colors remind me of a zephyr squash, which is a pepo.
I would say it’s quite clearly a pepo. There is really nothing that would point to other species. It’s true that the stem is a little different to typical pepo, but no species is uniform. As pepo and moschata/mixta can cross quite easily, it’s likely that most pepos carry little of those 2 species in them. Similarly as most humans carry little neandertal in them. In humans it’s on average few %, but as total something like 60% of neandertal is still present in all humans. So I would assume similarly almost all traits of the species that can cross faily easily can be present in one another. It’s the total of all traits that determines the species. In theory it could be a cross, but it’s hard to see all the traits from just pictures. Fruit is typical pepo (shape and also 2 colours). Leaves look like pepo, even if some moschata to have more pointy leaves (maybe inherited from pepo?). If the stems/leafstems are also spiky and not smooth, then it’s fairly likely that it’s just a pepo. Can’t remember having other than fairly smooth stems/leafstems on moschata. Again, pepos also sometimes have fairly smooth, but the other way around not so much that I know. Seeds also are somewhat different looking.
It’s either a pepo or moschata although from of the leaves and the stem that you can make out in the images it looks more like moschata. Could you share a close-up of a leaf?
I’ve never seed that bicolor outside a pepo. Someone already mentioned the zephyr summer squash (popular on the 90s). Carnival is a pretty new F1 bicolor acorn squash. We successfully grew out F2 from it last year, and F3 seeds are in the ground, and I’m planning to try a cross with Black Beauty to pack more flavor into a heat-tolerant pepo package
It’s possible one of those crossed with a moschata along the way.
I have to agree with everyone that it’s most likely a pepo. The stem is within the range of diversity of pepo, and the leaves scream pepo to me. The two tone coloring indicates zypher squash (pepo) as a recent ancestor.
Here are some more pictures. The stem, the seeds and the ripe bright orange fruit which stored all winter in our unheated garage.
I was leaning pepo. But looking at the stem confused me. The stem popped off on the one we split open for seeds
Sorry all I have is this showing the size of the plant. But if you click on it, you can zoom in pretty well. Maybe that would help?
I have to say predominantly Pepo. Looks a lot like long pie pumpkin, a winter squash you can stack like firewood or so I’ve read.
