C. maxima
2 gram package contains ~10 heirloom seeds. 99 days, from 2nd set of leaves to ripe fruit.
First collected by the USDA in 1940.
Iran Squash was found in the northeastern Iranian city of Torbat-e-Heydariyeh.
Great and varied colors.
Vining habit.
Tasty flesh, can store up to a year. Talk about survival food!
Iran is drought and heat tolerant.
Averages 5-15 pounds.
How long the people of Iran have been growing this squash is a mystery, but it has probably been a very long time. I suspect it was traded amongst villages for years because it is what we would call a landrace, meaning it has been saved by many different peoples (villages) all saving seeds for different characteristics and adding other varieties in from time to time. This produces a squash with high genetic variability. You will see this in the seeds themselves and the many colors/shapes of the fruit. If you are a seed saver this is a perfect chance to pick one strain you like the best and start saving for it. If you are all about genetic diversity and know that the more variant genes you have the better your chances of getting a crop every year, then this is the perfect squash for you. This is why people kept landraces. A bug or disease may harm some of your crop, but not all. This is a sharp contrast to the mono culture we farm with today. One disease and your entire crop is lost. The trade off is uniformity. Why is it again everything has to look the same? OH to fit in those nice plastic pertroleum boxes we ship around the world now! UGH! Grow real food!
This is an excellent chance to own a true heirloom. Very rare and very limited seed.