Finally a female pumpkin flower has opened on my giant pumpkin vines! I’m sooo excited. But am keeping my fingers crossed that the fruit sets. This flower bloomed three days ago – on Sunday. There were lots of bumble bees around, so I am hoping they pollinated this flower. Yesterday the flower had closed and the pumpkin still looked good. We’ll see.

I was surprised to see how different the female flower looks from all the male ones (the plants have many of these). Very fancy!

“The female flower contains an ovary that is inferior, usually with a single locule with 1 to 3 placentas. Ovules and seeds vary from one to many in each fruit. The male flower has 1 to 5 stamens with 3 being average. Botanically, the fruit is a pepo, a fruit type in which the ovary wall is fused with the receptacle tissue to form a hard rind.” from UGA Hort Dept.