C. pepo is a climbing or scrambling annual that originated from southwestern states and Central America. IIt is a complex species with many described subspecies, varieties and cultivars (including pumpkins, winter and summer squashes and gourds), which are widely cultivated in Ky. and sometimes appear as waifs, but generally not naturalized. The var. ovifera ("pear gourd") may not be truly naturalized, but several records of self-seeding plants are mapped here. It was one of the earliest domesticated plants in North America, reaching the central Mississippi and Ohio Valleys ca. 4000-4500 years ago (F.B. King in Ford 1985, Smith 2006).Var. melopepo (L.) Alef. is another old native American cultivar, with a reported coll. from PIKE (MM).