Coyote melon in fruit and with a male bloom, October 15, 2013.

Coyote melons (Cucurbita palmata) are a relative of gourds, cucumbers, and pumpkins, plants we commonly called cucurbits. These are members of the squash family, Cucurbitaceae, and thrive in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts on surprisingly low rainfall. In the driest regions they tend to be restricted to wash channels and arroyos where extra runoff concentrates, but elsewhere they can survive in places like vacant lots, roadside ditches, and at the base of rocky hills.

The flower shown in the image above is a male; female flowers have a small undeveloped ovary beneath the petals that becomes the gourd when fertilized. Both male and female flowers are found on the same plant, although they are borne separately in different leaf nodes along the vines. The tuberous root system is quite massive and plays a large role in helping to sustain the plant’s growth in dry times.

A filigree of skeleton weed buckwheat stems (Eriogonum deflexum) hovers over a carpet of vining coyote melon stems.

The 3 to 4 inch (8 to 10 cm) wide fruits are striped green and white while growing, fading to tan and white once dried. Coyote melons are quite bitter, but the large pale seeds are nutritious and contain about 30% protein and 30% oil, making them a useful food in spite of the unpalatable rind and flesh. I commonly see coyote scats filled with these seeds, many of which are unharmed, thereby making this canine a disperser of this plant. Interestingly, some Native Americans have explained the melon’s bitterness in their mythology as being due to the Trickster Coyote wishing to keep the fruits for himself. So when he defecates the seeds, that made them bitter and assured that Coyote would get to keep all the food for himself rather than having to share it with people. Good-tasting melons and squash were not subject to Coyote’s pranks, fortunately.

Another cucurbit well-adapted to arid regions of the USA is buffalo gourd. This plant is growing in May 2014. emerging from its winter dormancy in far southwestern Utah near the city of Saint George.

There are two different species of cucurbits commonly seen in the desert southwest. The other one is C. foetidissima, which is often called buffalo gourd and has larger triangular leaves and a scent of body odor. (Hence the name.) Their distribution tends to be farther east than C. palmata and they also appear to be more cold-tolerant since they’ll grow into the Great Plains, while C. palmata tends to be limited to low or middle deserts and cuts out if the soil freezes too deeply. They may hybridize with one-another where their ranges overlap.

Since buffalo gourds are also sometimes coyote melons, this can be confusing to people. In fact, I was often confused about them as well myself, since often I would see only the remnants of vines and the dried gourds, which look similar. But when growing, the leaves and distribution ranges are fairly distinct. Additionally, there is also a third species, C. digitata, which has very narrow leaves in a palmate arrangement and can hybridize with C. palmata. However C. digitata has a narrower US range and is found mostly in southeastern Arizona and southern New Mexico. Worldwide, the cucurbits are a diverse group, both in cultivation and in the wild.

Cucurbita foetidissima is a very attractive plant, but boy do they stink – kind of like spoiled onions. C. palmata is nowhere near as stenchy. Both species’ fruits are bitter and inedible, but they are handsome and would make cool landscape plants in certain wild settings where they have some room to run. Buffalo gourd tubers are very large and can weigh 30 to 50 lbs on big plants and live a long time; the vines can spread 20 feet in a season, although they die back to the ground every year, so it’s not like kudzu vines in the Deep South which can overtake a forest.

If you ever happen across some strange, misplaced-looking gourds lying scattered in some desert arroyo somewhere, don’t think that it was someone playing a joke on you. And don’t be tricked into eating one either, lest you find out what Coyote already knows….