Sponge Gourd ヘチマ

Japanese follows English.　英語の後に日本語が続きます。

This is a sponge gourd flower. The contrast between yellow and deep green is so beautiful!

The leaf is so green and large! 葉っぱ大きい！

   

Season of sponge gourd flowers へちまの花の季節

The color deep green is relaxing 深い緑に落ち着きました

As I wrote in "Gourds in Various Forms - Netsuke, Pickle....," Japan has various gourds and they are called different names without including the term "うり (uri) or gourd," which makes it difficult to see that they are all in the gourd family. The sponge gourd is not the exception, called "hechima" and has an interesting history on how it started to be called as such.

A sponge gourd was originally called (according to Wikipedia) "いとうり or "ito uri," meaning "thread gourd" and then changed as follows:

いとうり　"ito uri" 
→とうり　"to uri" 
→へちま　"hechima"

First, "i" of "ito uri" disappeared, resulting in only "to" remaining with "uri," which means gourd.

The letter "to" is between "he (へ)" and "chi (ち)" in the old Japanese alphabet, i.e., いろは, as below.

い　ろ　は　に　ほ　へ　と　ち　り　ぬ　る　を........

 i      ro     ha    ni     ho   he    to    chi    ri     nu    ru    wo.......

And between is in Japanese "ma" or "ま." So, all in all: 

"To" gourd is between "he" and "chi."

 と    うり   =　ま(ma)   へ           ち　　→　へちま（hechima）Got it?😉

Sponge gourds have male and female flowers, but I haven't been able to find female flowers yet..... 

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近所のへちまです。黄色と緑のコントラストが鮮やかです！

「ひさごの根付、奈良漬け、炒め物」でも書きましたが、英語で「xxxx gourd」で済むものが、日本語だと、ひさご、瓢箪、ゴーヤ、苦瓜、へちま等、いろいろあるから大変、かつ、ウリ科であることが分かりにくい！でもおいしいから許します🥰

へちまの名は、いとうりが後に縮まって「とうり（と瓜）」と転訛し、「と」はいろは歌で「へ」と「ち」の間にあることから「へち間」の意で「へちま」と呼ばれるようになったそうです。（出典：Wikipedia）

ちなみに雄の花しかありませんでした。最近一生懸命雌の花を探しております｡｡｡

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