Pumpkin

A pumpkin is a cultivated winter squash in the genus Cucurbita, a term most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties though it has no formal scientific definition and may refer to many different squashes of varied appearance across multiple species in the genus; it is sometimes used interchangeably with squash or winter squash. Pumpkins in the species Cucurbita pepo are among the oldest known domesticated plants, with evidence of cultivation dating to between 7000 and 5500 BCE in Mesoamerica; wild species of Cucurbita and the earliest domesticated forms are native to North America, in parts of present-day northeastern Mexico and the southern United States, but cultivars are now grown globally.