I found this early Buffalo gourd plant blooming in our walking field. The blooms have an interesting look. The flowers will turn to fruit in the form of a baseball sized gourd that resembles a small watermelon. I couldn’t believe that people actually eat these things. The plant has an odor that very much smells like, well it smells much like when you haven’t put on deodorant for a few days.

Cucurbita foetidissima, has numerous common names, including: buffalo gourd calabazilla chilicote, coyote gourd, fetid gourd, fetid wild pumpkin, Missouri gourd,  prairie gourd,  stinking gourd, wild gourd,  and wild pumpkin. The plant is an axerophytic tuberous plant found in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. The type specimen was collected from Mexico by Humboldt and Bonpland sometime before 1817.

The feral perennial Buffalo gourd has evolved in the semiarid regions and is well adapted to desert environments. It has abundant yields of oil, protein and carbohydrates. The carbohydrates who are formed in the tap root have led to the idea to grow the plant for biofuel.

The fruit is consumed by humans and animals. When the fruit is mature a stage marked by increasing desiccation of vine, leaves, fruit-stem, and fruit itself it begins its final gourd stage.

PEACEOUT ††† en theos ††† jlawrence