Bill who putters wrote:

In article ,
Jim Elbrecht wrote:

I'm surprised that I can't find a site with all [or even a few] the
subspecies of cucurbita listed with their proper names.

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs...taxon.pl?12606

Thanks. I didn't see much there-- I think they are saying
"cucurbita pepo L." and the 'L' stand for Linnaeus?

But somehow, from there I ended up here- where I did a search for
pumpkin & voila!
http://www.tropicos.org/NameSearch.a...onname=pumpkin

They've got 9 listed. All Cucurbitaceae, and all but one is a
Cucurbita. The outlier is Benincasa hispida , which among its other
common names "White Pumpkin" [I think I've heard of it as Ash gourd &
Winter Melon.]

The others listed are [Cucurbita] foetidissima, lundelliana, maxima,
moscheta, and pepo. The pepo is the only one that gives a variety
name. [and it happens to be melopepo, which is zuchini, which they say
has the common name of bush pumpkin. Can't say I've ever heard
that.]

Well-- I'm learning a lot of interesting stuff, here, but I don't
think I'm any closer to understanding why we call the things we do,
"Pumpkins".

Jim