Pumpkins have attracted the interest of plant biologists and
geneticists because of their great variety of shapes
[24]
. Taxono-
mically, pumpkins are a gourd-like squash of the genus
Cucurbita
and the family of gourds
Cucurbitaceae
. Edmund Sinnott wrote a
number of classical papers (1936–1945) on the growth of
Cucurbita
that are worth reviewing here. In 1936, Sinnott
[25]
used breeding
techniques to identify genes that explicitly govern pumpkin shape
(width to height ratio). He considered two genetic lines of
pumpkin, one shaped like a sphere and the other like a flying
saucer, or ‘‘patty-pan.’’ He found that the first generation (F1) was
dominated by the spherical shape and the second generation (F2)
was 3/4 disk and 1/4 sphere, as suggested by a single gene subject
to Mendelian inheritance. In fact, Edmund states ‘‘the shape of the
fruit is inherited independently of its size’’, where he defines a
shape index as the ratio of length to width, the same index that we
use in this investigation
[26]
. While Sinnott’s observations is
certainly true for low fruit-weights, we show in this study that
fruits can become flattened as they increase in weight.
Pumpkins have attracted the interest of plant biologists and
geneticists because of their great variety of shapes
[24]
. Taxono-
mically, pumpkins are a gourd-like squash of the genus
Cucurbita
and the family of gourds
Cucurbitaceae
. Edmund Sinnott wrote a
number of classical papers (1936–1945) on the growth of
Cucurbita
that are worth reviewing here. In 1936, Sinnott
[25]
used breeding
techniques to identify genes that explicitly govern pumpkin shape
(width to height ratio). He considered two genetic lines of
pumpkin, one shaped like a sphere and the other like a flying
saucer, or ‘‘patty-pan.’’ He found that the first generation (F1) was
dominated by the spherical shape and the second generation (F2)
was 3/4 disk and 1/4 sphere, as suggested by a single gene subject
to Mendelian inheritance. In fact, Edmund states ‘‘the shape of the
fruit is inherited independently of its size’’, where he defines a
shape index as the ratio of length to width, the same index that we
use in this investigation
[26]
. While Sinnott’s observations is
certainly true for low fruit-weights, we show in this study that
fruits can become flattened as they increase in weight.
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