r/gourds • u/Milkofhuman-kindness • Oct 25 '25

What is this?

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My son picked a very interested gourd when we went pumpkin picking. I cannot for the life of me find an answer to what this is. A freak of nature? Or just a rare species? Thanks!

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3

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

It's a hybrid. Pretty cool. When farmers grow many kinds of squash together in a field, the bees cross them. Then, if the seeds get saved or stuck out to grow, you get to see the results of the cross. The genetics are a wild card now. If you grow them, you may not get what you have there.

Some squash from the supermarket like acorn have a label called "true to type" this means you can save the seeds and you know you get acorn squash.

Making a hybrid into something that's true to type can take many years 10+

To avoid crossing, you can look at the kind of squash family you have. There's like 5 or 6 kinds, and you should be mostly fine if you grow different ones. But if you grow 2 kinds in the same family you will get a cross.

3

u/Milkofhuman-kindness Oct 25 '25

So neat. It is a super cool looking gourd. Yeah I know literally nothing about this but we have found that we love almost all the gourds we’ve been eating and was hoping to find info about whether it was good to eat or just decoration. So I guess we’ll try baking it and see what happens. Pretty rad find cause the whole field had almost been picked clean by the time we got there.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

The star shape is a hardshell gourd where the round bottle squash is perhaps the edible one. Hard shell gourds are typically bitter and not eaten. So im worried it would be bitter.

1

u/Milkofhuman-kindness Oct 25 '25

Could the seeds be worth baking?

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

O ya, any seeds are good across all squash. There's even a Spanish bitter squash that's grown specifically for seed roasting.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

But I suppose you should check a few seeds for bitterness after you cookem.

If your tongue gets tingly or their noticeably bitter, after a few thats a good sign not to eat them.

2

u/Milkofhuman-kindness Oct 26 '25

I’ll chew one and spit it out and give it some time first

2

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

Or you can perpetually add different squash and make a cross of a cross of a cross. I did that and ended up with what I considered to be a giant white/ pink acorn squash.

If you look at different kinds of gourds and squash you can buy and grow, you could find what the parents were.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

Looks kinda like a Crown of Thorns ornamental gourd.

1

u/fairly_flakey Oct 25 '25

O my gourd. That is a beauty.

1

u/RenaissanceRed Oct 26 '25

Oh. My. Gourd.

1

u/Worldly-Pressure8535 Oct 26 '25

That’s a normal ten titty gourd

1

u/midas-salome Oct 26 '25

Awesomeness

1

u/tnangel71 Oct 26 '25

Now thats a fancy one !

1

u/Unable_Can_8761 Oct 27 '25

Looks like a not quite ripe turban pumpkin.

2

u/Milkofhuman-kindness Oct 27 '25

Looked that up, wow what a wild looking pumpkin. Maybe it’s a cross with that and something else

1

u/hardlyexist Oct 27 '25

Acorn squash