🎃‘Tis the season for pumpkins! What better way to kick off October than with facts about the beloved orange fruit? 🍁The flowering plants that bear pumpkins are native to the Americas and are part of the family that includes watermelon, cucumbers, and zucchini. As angiosperms, pumpkin plants rely heavily on insects like bees to help transfer pollen from male flowers to female flowers. Pumpkins come in all sizes and can grow quite large. In 2021, a farmer in Tuscany, Italy, showcased a 2,700-pound- (794.5-kilogram-) pumpkin—the heaviest one to date—at Italy's Lo Zuccone (the pumpkin) championship! Photo: David Wagner, CC0 1.0, PublicDomainPictures
