Wax gourd
species of plant, winter melon
Benincasa hispida, the wax gourd, also called ash gourd, white gourd, winter gourd, winter melon, tallow gourd, ash pumpkin, dongah or Chinese preserving melon, is a species of gourd.
The wax gourd is native to South and Southeast Asia. It is grown, especially in Asia, for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. One variety of the plant, called chi qua (Benincasa hispida var. chieh-qua), is commonly used in Asian cuisine.
Description
The plant grows thick vines with coarse and hairy stems. It has large, rough leaves with a width between 10–30 centimetres (4–12 in) long.
In early summer from June to September, golden yellow flowers form in the leaf axils.
After they are pollinated, they bear obloid fruit 50–60 cm (20–24 in) long and 10–25 cm wide. They typically weigh 5–10 kg, with weights of up to 34.5 kg recorded.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wax gourd” is species of plant, winter melon. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through gourd, species and plant, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wax gourd” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.