Pumpkins
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101 free Pumpkins trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
60 free pumpkins trivia questions with answers. From ancient Mesoamerican crops to the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, pumpkins have carved out a surprisingly deep place in human history. Test your knowledge of pumpkin botany, folklore, farming, festivals, and food with 101 questions that go well beyond the patch.
30 of 101 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the fairy tale Cinderella, what does the fairy godmother turn a pumpkin into?
A coach
A coach, gilded all over with gold: Charles Perrault added the pumpkin when he wrote the tale down in 1697, along with the mice that become its horses.
Q 02Which continent are pumpkins originally native to?
North America
Wild Cucurbita grows in what is now northeastern Mexico and the southern United States.
Q 03Irish legend credits the carved Halloween lantern to which trickster who cheated the Devil?
Stingy Jack
Stingy Jack, the tale goes, tricked the Devil twice and was then refused by both Heaven and Hell, left to wander the dark with a single burning coal for light.
Q 04Which holiday is most closely associated with pumpkin pie in the United States?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving's pie did not always have a crust: one early New England version cooked spiced, sweetened milk inside a hollowed-out pumpkin set in the fire.
Q 05What are roasted pumpkin seeds also commonly called?
Pepitas
Pepitas, from the Spanish for seed or pip, look green because the white hull has been removed, though some pumpkins grow seeds with no hull at all.
Q 06In the Peanuts Halloween TV special, who waits in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin?
Linus van Pelt
Linus van Pelt spends Halloween night in the pumpkin patch in the 1966 special; Sally stays with him out of a crush and berates him when the only thing to rise from the patch is Snoopy.
Q 07In which Washington Irving tale is a shattered pumpkin found beside Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat?
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow hints that the Headless Horseman's flying 'head' was only a pumpkin, thrown by Ichabod's rival Brom Bones, who laughs whenever it is mentioned.
Q 08Which plant family do pumpkins belong to?
Cucurbitaceae (gourd)
Pumpkins belong to the Cucurbitaceae family, also known as the gourd or cucurbit family. This family also includes cucumbers, melons, and squash.
Q 09The word 'pumpkin' comes from the Greek 'pepon', meaning what?
Large melon
Large melon: the Greek word probably first meant 'ripe', from a root for cooking, and it reached English as 'pumpion' before taking its '-kin' ending in the 17th century.
Q 10Which cultivar is behind most record-breaking heavyweight pumpkins?
Atlantic Giant
Atlantic Giant was bred by a Canadian farmer who left school in grade 6 and taught himself plant genetics; in 1980 he set a 459-pound world record with it.
Q 11Pumpkin flesh is low in calories because it is mostly what?
Water
Water makes up more than nine-tenths of the flesh, leaving little room for starch and sugar: a cup of cooked pumpkin has only about 49 calories.
Q 12Which U.S. state produces the most pumpkins?
Illinois
Illinois out-grew the next four states combined in 2025 because, unlike them, it plants most of its fields with pumpkins bred for canning, not carving.
Q 13Which company produces the majority of canned pumpkin sold in the United States?
Libby's
Libby's packs so much of the country's supply that when heavy rain swamped its growers' fields in 2009, it warned shoppers the shelves might empty.
Q 21Which New Hampshire city's pumpkin festival long held the world record for lit jack-o'-lanterns?
Keene
Keene took the record back in 2013 with 30,581 lanterns, but after riots on the 2014 festival weekend the city denied a permit and the event moved to Laconia.
Q 22A 2010 air-cannon shot sent a pumpkin a record 5,545 feet through the thin, high-altitude air of which state?
Utah
Utah's high ground at Moab means thinner air and less drag on the pumpkin; the best shot at the championships in low-lying Delaware fell well short of it.
Q 23At peak growth, a giant pumpkin can gain up to how much weight in a single day?
50 pounds
50 pounds a day is still far from the limit: Georgia Tech researchers who crushed pumpkins in vices calculate a perfect one could reach 20,000 pounds.
Q 14Which pigment gives pumpkins their orange color?
Beta-carotene
Beta-carotene, an orange carotenoid pigment, colours the flesh; eat enough of it and your skin can take on a harmless orange tint called carotenodermia.
Q 15What is the traditional 'pumpkin spice' blend typically made from?
Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice
Traditional pumpkin spice (or pumpkin pie spice) is a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves. Despite its name, it contains no actual pumpkin -- it's the spice blend used to season pumpkin dishes.
Q 16Before pumpkins, Irish and Scottish Halloween lanterns were carved from which vegetable?
Turnips
Turnips were hollowed out and given grotesque faces; immigrants to North America switched to the native pumpkin because it was bigger and far easier to carve.
Q 17Where does the squash bee, a native pollinator of pumpkins, build its nest?
In the ground
In the ground: each female digs her own vertical tunnel, and although squash bees live alone, many will nest side by side.
Q 18What type of flower do pumpkin plants produce?
Yellow-orange flowers
Yellow-orange flowers open as separate males and females on one plant, so bees must carry pollen between them, and a poorly pollinated pumpkin starts to swell and then fails.
Q 19What scientific species name covers most common carving pumpkins?
Cucurbita pepo
Cucurbita pepo: the species of most carving and field pumpkins also includes acorn squash, zucchini, and most ornamental gourds.
Q 20Most canned pumpkin in the United States is actually made from which variety?
Dickinson pumpkins
A rainy 2015 spring caused a poor harvest and a Christmas canned-pumpkin shortage.
Q 24Which American writer grew a prize 123-pound pumpkin in 1857?
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau grew it from seeds the Patent Office sent him and it took a premium at the county fair; its buyer meant to sell the seeds at ten cents apiece.
Q 25Pumpkins are an especially rich source of which nutrient?
Vitamin A
Vitamin A: the body makes it from the same pigment that colours the flesh, and 100 grams of raw pumpkin supplies nearly half a day's needs.
Q 26Travis Gienger hauled his 2,749-pound pumpkin from Minnesota to a 2023 world-record weigh-off in which California town?
Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay, the self-styled pumpkin capital, crowned it a world record, a mark that stood until English twins grew a 2,819-pounder in 2025.
Q 27Racers have paddled hollowed-out giant pumpkins across a lake at Windsor in which Canadian province?
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia's regatta was started in 1999 by the son of the man who bred the giant pumpkins it used; Martha Stewart entered in 2005, but bad weather stopped her flight.
Q 28Pumpkin seed oil is a protected speciality of which Austrian state?
Styria
Styria's oil is pressed from roasted hull-less seeds and plays a trick of the light: it looks green in a thin film but red in a thick layer.
Q 29How does a pumpkin plant spread as it grows?
It sends out long trailing vines
The stems can run 15 to 50 feet, with spring-like tendrils growing from each node.
Q 30In Zambia, which part of the pumpkin plant is boiled with groundnut paste to make chibwabwa?
The leaves
The leaves: cooks stir ground peanuts, onion and tomato into a boiling pot, add the greens and simmer until thick, then serve it as a relish with nshima.