Elizabeth Schneider

Bottle Gourd

Lagenaria siceraria

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Appears in
top 1000Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini
Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini

By Elizabeth Schneider

Published 2001

  • About

Also calabash, hu lu gua and similar names (Chinese), lauki and dudhi (Indian), upo (Philippine)

Including cucuzza and tennerumi

Cucurbits—a colloquial catchall term used to signify members of the Cucurbitaceae or gourd family (which includes some 800 species)—are as often as not notable more for their usefulness than their distinctiveness. Mild, versatile, and adaptable, the bottle gourd, for example, appears in daily meals from India to Italy, China to Mexico.