Bottle gourd
Lagenaria siceraria · Gourd family
Plant portrait
Bottle gourd is a climber with broad leaves and fruits in many shapes.
Harvested part
The fruits; only explicitly edible vegetable varieties are intended as food. Decorative gourds must not be eaten.
What to watch for
Watch white flowers and then gourds; fruit shape cannot establish whether they are edible.
Growth stages of the bottle gourd
Plotilo illustrates the bottle gourd in 7 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing, flowering, developing fruit and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Flowering
Flowers are shown before fruit begins to form.
- Developing fruit
Fruit begins to develop on the plant.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the bottle gourd (the gourd family): the courgette, the cucumber, the pumpkin, the squash, the melon and the watermelon. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.