Etymology
From the Greek "pepon" (ripe)

Description
These are the two largest winter squash, growing up to 1.7 m in circumference and weighing up to 50 kg.

The pumpkin has a hard, smooth, orange skin, with a dry, sweet, yellowish-orange flesh, and a hard, fibrous, five-sided stem with no bulge at its joining point. The potiron could be called the European pumpkin, though with some differences: it has a tender, spongy, cylindrical stem, flared at the joining point, with orangey-yellow or green flesh.

The pumpkin has not always been the phantom head placed in the window on Hallowe'en night to frighten away the spirits of the dead. In colonial days, housewives would collect pumpkins from their gardens at the beginning of fall. They always kept a few melon-sized squash to cook in the embers like baked potatoes.