Leaves triangular-ovate (like a rounded isoceles triangle), somewhat cordate (heart-shaped) at base. Strong and nauseous smell, leaves ~10-30 cm long, held erect, with a petiole ~ half as long as the leaf. Blue-grey green, coarsely scabrous (rough to the touch), conspicuously veined, often folded upward lengthwise along the midrib. Margins sometimes lightly serrated and sometimes faintly lobed at base. One tubular flower per leaf axil, bright yellow or orange-yellow, 9-12 cm long, 6 broad lobes. Blooms June to August. Fruit is a round gourd, ~6-9 cm in diameter, sometimes smooth, rough, or grooved, and striped, green and whitish at first, then ripening to yellow and cream. Perennial plant grows as a sprawling vine, commonly spreading out 2-4 m. Puts out corkscrew tendrils at the leaf axils, with which the vine clings to objects and climbs onto them. Mature gourd is poisonous. Found in sandy or gravelly sites in coastal sage scrub, along the coastal strand, in grasslands, and in the high and low deserts of California and into the American Southwest as far as Texas and down into Mexico.
Cucurbita foetidissima (Cucurbitaceae): calabazilla or stinking gourd or fetid gourd or coyote gourd or buffalo gourd or chilicote or wild pumpkin or wild gourd
The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.