Published June 30, 2015 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Cucurbita maxima Duchesne, Essai Hist. Nat. Courges

  • 1. Botanic Garden of Meise, Nieuwelaan 38, B- 1860 Meise,
  • 2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University

Description

Cucurbita maxima Duchesne, Essai Hist. Nat. Courges: 7. 1786.

(Cucurbitaceae)

Confirmation of casual neophyte for the flora of Piemonte (Conti et al., 2005; Celesti-Grapow et al., 2009a).

ITALY. Piemonte. Prov. Vercelli: Vercelli, city center close to river Sesia, roadside, 07.09.2014, F. Verloove 11069 (BR).

Doubtlessly an ephemeral alien, this species unlike in other parts of Europe, is frequently cultivated in northern Italy, its fruits being used in different traditional dishes. It is distinguished from the latter by its peduncle that is terete and becoming corky in fruit. Its leaves are almost entire or very shallowly lobed and softly hairy above. C. pepo, in contrast, has peduncles that are deeply furrowed in fruit (conspicuously angled, not corky) and its leaves are deeply 5-lobed and hirsute hairy above.

Cucurbita maxima was considered doubtful for Piemonte by Conti et al. (2005) and not listed from that region by Celesti-Grapow et al. (2009a).

Notes

Published as part of Verloove, Filip & Ardenghi, Nicola M. G., 2015, New distributional records of non-native vascular plants in northern Italy, pp. 5-14 in Natural History Sciences 2 (1) on page 8, DOI: 10.4081/nhs.2015.219, http://zenodo.org/record/12523705

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Collection code
F
Event date
2014-07-09
Verbatim event date
2014-07-09
Kingdom
Plantae
Phylum
Tracheophyta
Order
Cucurbitales
Family
Cucurbitaceae
Genus
Cucurbita
Species
maxima
Taxon rank
species

References

  • Conti F., Abbate G., Alessandrini A. & Blasi C. (eds.), 2005 - An annotated checklist of the Italian vascular flora. Palombi Editori, Roma.
  • Celesti-Grapow L., Alessandrini A., Arrigoni P. V., Banfi E., Bernardo L., Bovio M., Brundu G., Cagiotti M. R., Camarda I., Carli E., Conti F., Fascetti S., Galasso G., Gubellini L., La Valva V., Lucchese F., Marchiori S., Mazzola P., Peccenini S., Poldini L., Pretto F., Prosser F., Siniscalco C., Villani M. C., Viegi L., Wilhalm T. & Blasi C., 2009 a - Inventory of the non-native flora of Italy. Plant Biosystems, 143 (2): 386 - 430.