Zucchini

Zucchini
Striped and uniform-colored zucchini
Genus	Cucurbita
Species	Cucurbita pepo
Origin	19th-century northern Italy

The zucchini (/zuˈkiːni/ ^ⓘ; pl.: zucchini or zucchinis),^[1] courgette (/kʊərˈʒɛt/) or baby marrow (Cucurbita pepo)^[2] is a summer squash, a vining herbaceous plant whose fruit are harvested when their immature seeds and epicarp (rind) are still soft and edible. It is closely related, but not identical, to the marrow; its fruit may be called marrow when mature.^[3][4][5]

Ordinary zucchini fruit are any shade of green, though the golden zucchini is a deep yellow or orange.^[6] At maturity, they can grow to nearly 1 metre (3 feet) in length, but they are normally harvested at about 15–25 cm (6–10 in).^[7]

In botany, the zucchini's fruit is a pepo, a berry (the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower) with a hardened epicarp. In cookery, it is treated as a vegetable, usually cooked and eaten as an accompaniment or savory dish, though occasionally used in sweeter cooking.

Zucchini occasionally contain toxic cucurbitacins, making them extremely bitter, and causing severe gastero-enteric upsets. Causes include stressed growing conditions, and cross pollination with ornamental squashes.^[8]

Zucchini descends from squashes first domesticated in Mesoamerica over 7,000 years ago,^[9] but the zucchini itself was bred in Milan in the late 19th century.^[10]