This "bottle gourd" is a climbing or scrambling annual that may have originated in Africa, but has been cultivated widely by mankind and dispersed across the world. It was one of the earliest domesticated plants in North America (Ford 1985); see also citations by M. It is largely tropical to subtropical, and does not persist after cultivation in Ky., but there are records of waifs from MEAD or NELS (DHL) and TRIG (APSC).