Unusual C.moschata

[Mike Deyo]

The past two years I've grown an unusual African squash called "Ithanga" from Sand Hill Preservation. The name might just be "pumpkin" in Zulu. It has been vigorous; pest, drought and hot weather tolerant, and reasonably productive. It resembles a butternut with very short neck, and proportionally large bulb. There is some variability in fruit shape. The fruits are small, 1-2 pounds. The fruits have whitish variegation when immature, develop an orange spot where they touch the ground, and later turn orangish-tan all over. Unlike a butternut, the rind is more leathery, less hard, easy to cut through with a knife. They keep ok, but not as long as a butternut.

Unusual features: the sepals on female flowers are really large. The flesh is fine grained and not stringy, and very dry for a moschata. If you peel and cut up to boil, it produces very little liquid as it cooks, often I have to add water to keep from scorching. You don't have to boil forever to reduce excess liquid. Also excellent baked. It is less sweet than many moschatas, but flavor is good, would work both with savory or sweet dishes.

Last year I grew Burpee Butterbush as well, and the bumblebees did some crossing, so that this year I had some plants that were obviously Butterbush X Ithanga F-1 plants. Their leaves were twice as large as either parent, and the vines grew 50% longer than Ithanga. They had the large sepals of Ithanga (must be dominant gene), and the fruits were more butternut shaped, had the immature variegation of Ithanga, but a harder rind more like Burpee Butterbush. I selfed some fruits, so in the future I will try to recover bush plants that have some of the positive aspects of Ithanga.

[Mica Winnower]

Those enlarged sepals are a gorgeous trait, holy heck! Definitely something I'd love to add to my own genetic pool. Hopefully you keep growing these out and can swap seeds one day!

[Mike Deyo]

Sure, I'd be glad to! I saved some selfed seed from them this year.

[Luke83]

Did you grow any more like this,  would love to know if that trait was passed on.