Saving seed from the gourd family (squash, gourds, cucumber, muskmelon, watermelon, etc.) was discussed at a recent Sierra Vista Garden Club meeting. Strange crosses were told of and misinformation was given as to what will cross with what. I have researched a few books and here is a short summation from several informative and interesting sources: Webster's Dictionary says, "genus, Biol. a classification of plants or animals with common distinguishing characteristics: a genus is the main subdivision of a family and is made up of a small group of closely related species or of a single species; the genus name is capitalized and precedes the species name, which is not capitalized.

Cucurbita pepo includes a variety of squash types, both hard shelled winter and tender summer squash, as well as acorn squash, small gourds, pumpkins, and spaghetti squash. Since varieties will cross, you can see the possibilities of odd and interesting crosses. The crosses are edible but may not be so tasty.

Cucurbita maxima includes hubbard and buttercup squash.

C. moschata includes butternut and Tahitian squash.

C. mixta includes green striped cushaw, hulless seeded pumpkin, pepita squash, and striped belize. (The last three are grown primarily for the edible seeds.)

A few botanists who have studied squash pollination think some crossing may occur between buttercup (C. maxima) or acorn (C. pepo) with butter nut (C. moschata) but others disagree. Even the careful members of the Seed Savers Exchange plant one variety of each of the four squash species during the same summer.

So we can safely save seeds if we plant in one summer, for instance, zucchini, buttercup, butternut, and hulless seeded pumpkin.

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), muskmelons (Cucumis melo), and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) will not cross pollinate squash, nor each other since they are different species and in watermelon, different genus. Of course the varieties of each species will readily cross with each other as do the squash types.

Wild gourds won't cross with garden squash because they are a different genus.

If you want to save seed of your favorite gourd family variety, and your neighbor grows a different variety of the same species, you still can do it, but the ways and means are another story - another time!