Calabash

Calabash, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), is a climbing vine of the gourd family grown for its large fruit, which people have used both as a vegetable and as a container. Picked young, the fruit has pale green skin and white flesh and is cooked like a squash in many tropical kitchens. Left to mature and dry, the hard shell becomes a ladle, bowl, water vessel or musical instrument. The fruit varies from huge and round to slender and serpentine, sometimes longer than a metre. The species is native to tropical Africa, was domesticated independently in Asia and Africa, and was carried across the world long before Columbus. It is also called long melon, New Guinea bean and Tasmania bean. Do not confuse it with the unrelated calabash tree, whose hard fruits are used for similar utensils.