Plant · P-209

Bottle Gourd

Lagenaria siceraria

Bottle gourd's real value here is not food but craft: the mature shell dries hard enough to become a bottle, bowl, dipper or birdhouse depending on the variety grown, a genuine substitute for a bought vessel. The young fruit, shoots and leaves are also eaten, and the seed presses into an oil running up to 45 percent, with an unusual protein route besides - a curd similar to tofu made from the seed. Unlike the squash it resembles, this one is dangerous to feed to livestock: doses as small as a gram or two per kilogram of body weight have killed goats, and an occasionally bitter fruit carries the same compound that causes vomiting and diarrhea in people, so any raw sliver that tastes bitter should be discarded rather than cooked. It flowers at dusk with large white blooms pollinated by moths rather than bees, an unusual habit for this group of plants.