Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CLXXII · Topic 25: Farm and garden crops
172. The pumpkin
Goal: Your child finds the pumpkin's two kinds of flowers, explains why bees are needed for a pumpkin to grow, and studies the fruit and seeds.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A pumpkin vine with flowers (garden or farm), or a small green and a ripe pumpkin
- A small knife for the adult
- Damp sand or soil in a cup
What's in the book
A Teacher's Story about the pumpkin and the lesson in two parts: “The Pumpkin Vine and Flowers” (twelve questions) and “The Pumpkin Fruit” (eight questions), with photographs and Whittier's “The Pumpkin.”
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Comstock says September or early October in the garden or field. Pumpkin flowers open in the morning and close in the afternoon, so go early. The lesson also works for squash, cucumbers and melons. Bees will be in the flowers: let them come out before you look in.
The leading thought
The pumpkin and squash were cultivated by the American Indians in their cornfields long before Columbus discovered the new world. The flowers of these plants depend entirely upon insects for carrying their pollen, and are unable to develop their fruit without this aid.
Two kinds of flowers
How many different forms of flowers do you find on a pumpkin vine? What are the chief differences in their shape?
Find one of the flowers which has below it a little green globe, which will later develop into a pumpkin. How does this flower differ from the one that bears the pollen?
Comstock asks children to taste the nectar cup. Skip that; look at it with the lens instead.
Visitors and tendrils
What insects do you find visiting the pumpkin flowers?
Describe one of the tendrils of the pumpkin vine. Do you think that these tendrils could help the vine in climbing?
Inside the fruit
Cut in halves crosswise a small green pumpkin and a ripe one. Which is the most solid? Can you see how the seeds are borne in the green pumpkin?
The adult does the cutting. Count the sections and compare with the three stigmas you saw in the flower.
Plant a seed
Plant a pumpkin seed in damp sand and give it warmth and light. From which end does it sprout? What comes first, the root or the leaves?
Nature notebook
Draw the pollen flower and the flower with the little green pumpkin under it, side by side. Then a cross-section of the pumpkin with its seeds.
Afterwards
Watch the sprouting seed for two weeks, as Comstock asks: how does the sprout pry open the seed shell to get its seed-leaves out?
Tip
Comstock asks whether you've tried roasting and salting pumpkin seeds. Seeds from a food pumpkin are fine to roast with an adult; take care with the hot oven.
Answers to the book's problems
One kind of flower has only pollen (on long, slender stems); the other has a small green pumpkin below it. Without insects to carry pollen from one to the other, the little pumpkin does not grow.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.