General Information

COMMON NAMES: Bottle Gourd, Calabash Groud, Calabash Vine, White-flowered Gourd; German Flaschenkürbis TRADITIONAL NAMES: ‘Ue (RR MG AT MK MT AK); Other Polynesian - Fagu (SAM) GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE Africa; EXOTIC EXOTIC Asia, America, Oceania (incl. Eastern Polynesia) COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Introduced - Polynesian, Not naturalised; S.Group - lost; N.Group - never present; Land, lowlands, gardens; on volcanic soil SIGNIFICANCE LIST: ; Nationally extirpatedMedicine, Material (Container) KEY FEATURES: An annual climbing vine to 10m. STEM hairy and sticky. TENDRILS one-branched. LEAVES heart-shaped, to 20cmØ; stalk 12cm, 2 glands at top. FLOWERS long-stalked male and short-stalked female flowers on each plant (=monoecious); both solitary with PETALS 5, white, free, oval, to 4cm; self-compatible (=can pollinate itself). FRUIT smooth, ripens yellow-green and hard-shelled, near-round to flask-shaped, 20-80cm long. SEEDS flat teardroplike, pale. Many varieties.

Cook Islands Distribution

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Southern Group: Present    Makatea: X
RR	MG	AT	MK	MT	AK	PL	TK	MN
X	+X	X	X	X	X	-	-	-

Northern Group: -
TN	MH	RK	PK	NS	SW
-	-	-	-	-	-

Lagenaria siceraria (Molina)
SYNONYMS: Cucurbita siceraria Molina 1782; Lagenaria vulgaris; Cucurbita lagenaria Linnaeus 1753; [Lagenaria vulgaris of TC was Benincasa]

TAXONOMY: PLANTAE; ANTHOPHYTA (=Angiospermae); MAGNOLIOPSIDA (=Dicotyledones); DILLENIIDAE; Violales; CUCURBITACEAE

SIGNIFICANCE NOTES -
BIODIVERSITY: Nationally extirpated. Comment: Original varieties extirpated. Varities re-introduced in early 1990s frm Hawaii also now rare or extirpated.
POSITIVE SIGNIFICANCE: Medicine, Material (Container). Comments: Fomerly used to make utensils, including water containers.

GENERAL NOTE: Gourd containers were very common in Hawaii and on Easter Island, especially as water bottles, less so in New Zealand, and distinctly secondary in Cooks and French Polynesia to large coconut and bamboo containers. In Hawaii they were used to make containers for many uses, along with rattles, drums and head-masks. In most of Polynesia gourd containers were often elaborately decorated.[Dodge 1978]

Vouchers:
Rarotonga: fieldspecimen, 1899, T.Cheeseman (1903) as "not often seen at the present time", with ID as Lagenaria vulgaris; not recorded by later botanists, except for a few plants grown from seed given by Hawaiians at the 1992 Arts Festival, and these plants were all gone within a few years, G.McCormack. Rarotonga: reported by A.Tuara of a few plants grown from seed given by Hawaiians at the 1992 Arts Festival, and these plants were gone within a few years, G.McCormack.

References:
p.813 Neal - In Gardens of Hawaii
p.633 Hortus 3rd
p.645 Royal Hort. Soc. Index of Garden Plants
p.382 Tropica
p.2/679 A.C.Smith - Flora Vitiensis Nova
p.281 A Cheeseman - Flora of Rarotonga
p.410d Whistler - Ethnobotany of the Cook Islands

Data Update History (information):
zTX, zB02, zM02, zupM03b, zD02

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