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Cucurbita ficifolia

cucurbita ficifolia - Wikilingue - Encydia

Plantilla:Ficha of taxón

The squash, alcayote, chilacayote, cayote, chiverre, citron, sambo (Cucurbita ficifolia) is a botanical plant species with flower of the family of the cucurbitaceous ones, cultivated in the whole world for its use in gastronomy.

It is closely related with the different varieties of zapallo (Cucurbita spp)., although it is atypical in its chromosomal and biochemical characters with regard to them and, exceptionally in the genre, rarely it produces hybrids. Almost the whole plant takes advantage, there being used the flowers and the sprouts as vegetable and the mature fruit and its seed for the sweets making.

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Common name

Description

C. ficifolia it is, like most of the species of Cucurbita, of creeping habit; herbaceous, annual in temperate zones, and perennial in tropical zones; the downy stem reaches a 5 m extension (it is not strange that I reached 15 m), and throws earrings that it uses to climb in the adjacent vegetation. In its ripeness he receives semiwoody characteristics; it is exceptional between the cucúrbitas for being perennial in its wild state, although the cultivation is carried out in general annually.

Sheets pecioladas, with broke ribs, penta - or heptalobuladas, of big size, dark green color and back pubescente; similar to the fig tree in appearance, from it it derives its scientific name (ficifolia, "of fig tree sheets" in Latin) and English (fig-leaf gourd).

The plant is monoica invariably. The flowers are solitary, pentámeras and axiliares; big and of beefy petals, with corolla of up to 7,5 cm in diameter and yellow or orange color. The masculine ones have a chalice in the shape of bell, and they are long and pediceladas, with three estámenes. The feminine ones present an ovoid ovary multilocular, and a corolla major than the masculine ones. The pollination takes place by means of insects, especially bees of the genre Peponapis.

The fruit is globular and of oblong form; of 2 dm of diameter, and it does not overcome 5-6 kg in weight. The skin, green or whitish, it protects a pulp shaped basically for mesocarpio, dries, fibrous, of clear and sweet color. It can contain up to 500 seeds of smoothed form and dark color, parduzcas or black women as the varieties. The same plant can give up to 50 fruits in favorable conditions.

Chromosomal number

Origin, cultivation and distribution

Its origin is ignored by accuracy; different examination lines point to Mexico or the Andean region, but it was not possible to have stated any of the hypotheses. The linguistic evidence would favor a Mexican origin, since the name used almost universally is of origin náhuatl; nevertheless, the most ancient preserved archaeological remains come from Peru. There is not known the wild variety from which it has originated, and the hypotheses point at a still unknown species, possibly native of the oriental region of the Andean mountain range.

Today it is cultivated from Chile (where traditionally it receives the name of squash) and Argentina (where traditionally there is called he cayote) up to the south of the United States, and in the Mediterranean region of Europe, where it was taken in the XVIIth century. The same Europeans seem to have introduced it in the India, Japan and the Philippines, which today are important producers.

It is less intensely cultivated of the commercial Cucurbita species, but perhaps the one that shows a wider geographical distribution; in the wild state it is not difficult to find it in the high areas (1000 to 3000 msnm) and moderated of the American continent. This facility owes partly to its proven resistance to several viruses that they affect to other related species, what makes more problematic the inability to obtain hybrids without very sophisticated means.

C. ficifolia it needs humid soils and moderate climate; he prefers day conditions I chatter, although in warm regions it is cultivated the whole year. It is not resistant to the frosts in the first year of life.

In some places it is used like boss for the graft of plants of melon (Cucumis melo, cucurbitaceous other one).

Employment

The flowers and tender sprouts of C. ficifolia are used in Mexico and other American countries like vegetable, in a way similar to fiore I gave zucca (the flower of C. pepo and C. maxim) used in the Italian kitchen. Also there is used the immature, bare and boiled fruit.

The mature fruit presents an important sugar concentration, by what it is consumed like sweet and it is used to prepare drinks. In jam it is used for the dressmaking of hair of angel, an elaborated sweet to coating the fibers of the pulp with caramel with cinnamon or lemon crust. The seeds — rich in lípidos and proteins — are the main ingredient of a typical dessert of the Mexican region of Chiapas, the nougats.

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