Gardening: pumpkin, cucumber…female flower or male?
Self-tutoring about gardening: the tutor mentions something he recently learned.
In the Annapolis Valley, where I lived as a kid decades ago, lots of people grew pumpkins, cucumbers, etc. They didn’t seem to worry too much about male and female flowers; things like that just seemed to proceed on their own, eventually producing pumpkins, cucumbers, etc.
Yet, I’m learning that pumpkins, cucumbers, and perhaps other melon-like plants, do indeed have different male and female flowers. They’re monoecious, meaning they have both male and female flowers on the same plant.
Apparently, a way to distinguish between the male and female flowers on a pumpkin (or cucumber) is that the female flower will have a swollen node below it, which will ultimately become the fruit. The male flower, on the other hand, just has a slim stem below the flower.
Source:
Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.
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