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The Chayote: Its Culture and Uses. 
3 
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short, the longer days of midsummer in temperate latitudes being 
favorable for vegetative growth rather than for flowering and 
fruiting. 
VARIETIES OF CHAYOTES. 
The chayote is a cucurbit, related to the cucumber and squash. 
The fruits, however, are unlike those of other cucurbits commonly 
grown. They are produced, usually singly, in the leaf axils of the 
growing vine, though on &n unusually prolific vine two fruits occa¬ 
sionally develop at one node. Because of the variability of the 
chayote a number of types have arisen, whose fruits may be grouped 
according to color, size, surface, form, and quality of flesh. 
The fruits in different varieties (PI. Ill) range in color from dark 
green to ivory white; in size from those weighing a few ounces to 
fruits 2 pounds or more in weight; in surface from quite even 
(PL IV) to deeply wrinkled or corrugated (PL I) and from smooth 
to very prickly; in form from almost spherical, with no pronounced 
fissure, to long and flattened pear shape with a deep fissure at the 
blossom end of the fruits. In many varieties five grooves divide the 
fruit into five longitudinal segments. The depth of these grooves has 
much to do with determining the desirability of any given type of 
chayote. In quality chayotes vary from quite fiberless with no pro¬ 
nounced seed coat surrounding the single flat seed (see Fig. 4) to 
those having a tough, fibrous, inedible seed coat with fibers radiating 
into the flesh. 
The results of recent experiments carried on at the United States 
Plant Introduction Garden, Brooksville, Fla., indicate that chayote 
fruits may vary considerably from seed in the first generation both 
in color, size, surface contour, and in the presence or absence of 
prickles. This variation is due, doubtless, to chance cross-pollina¬ 
tion in the field. These results suggest that if certain varieties 
recognized to be good ones are to be kept true to type, it will be 
necessary to propagate them by means of cuttings, as described else¬ 
where in this circular, or to grow them in regions remote from other 
varieties in order to provide against cross-pollination. In dis¬ 
cussing varieties of chayotes in Guatemala, Wilson Popenoe, Agri¬ 
cultural Explorer of the United States Department of Agriculture, 
remarks: 
The question of varieties, I am convinced, is one of the most important 
ones in connection with chayote culture and one to which we have not as yet 
devoted sufficient attention in the United States. Unquestionably there are 
important differences in the quality of the different varieties cultivated 
in Guatemala, differences almost sufficiently marked to characterize the chayote 
as an excellent vegetable or to condemn it as a poor one, according as one 
.samples a really good sort or one of the poorer ones. 
The ideal chayote, from the market standpoint as well as from that 
of the home, is one of 8 ounces to a pound or more in weight, with 
smooth surface, fiber-free flesh, and a delicate agreeable flavor. 
Little has been attempted in breeding work with the chayote, but 
there is no reason to doubt the possibility of improving upon exist¬ 
ing varieties. 
