Winter squash

Winter squash is a type of fruit that grows every year. There are different kinds of squash in the group called Cucurbita. Winter squash is usually grown late in the season. It looks less neat and can be a bit bumpy or warty. It's usually smaller to medium-sized and has a hard outer shell. These types of squash can be kept for a long time and are usually eaten in the winter.^[1] Unlike summer squash, they're picked and eaten when they're fully grown and have a tough skin. Most people cook winter squash before eating it, and you usually don't eat the skin like you might with summer squash.^[2]

An assortment of winter squashes

Some types of winter squash are round and orange, and we call them pumpkins. In New Zealand and Australian English, "pumpkin" usually means all kinds of winter squash, not just the round orange ones.^[3]

References

1. Victor E. Boswell and Else Bostelmann. "Our Vegetable Travelers." The National Geographic Magazine. 96.2: August 1949.
2. "Winter Squash". University of Illinois Extension. Archived from the original on April 21, 2015. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
3. Ferriol, María; Picó, Belén (2007). "3". Handbook of Plant Breeding: Vegetables I. New York: Springer. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-387-72291-7. The common terms "pumpkin", "squash", "gourd", "cushaw", "ayote", "zapallo", "calabaza", etc. are often applied indiscriminately to different cultivated species of the New World genus Cucurbita L. (Cucurbitaceae): C. pepo L., C.  maxima Duchesne, C. moschata Duchesne, C. argyrosperma C. Huber and C. ficifolia Bouché.

Other websites

• Sorting Cucurbita names