By Megan Wilde
Most animals wouldn’t dare eat the sprawling gray-green vines of a buffalo gourd, even if it were the only plant growing in a pasture. And for good reason. Though the gourds look like small, round watermelons, they taste horribly bitter and smell even worse. That’s how they earned the nickname “stink gourd” and the scientific name Cucurbita foetidissima—“most fetid.” But to some beetles and bees, this Chihuahuan Desert native is the center of the universe. Even desert-dwelling humans have found them useful. Why are these gourds so stinky? And what does this malodorous plant have to offer?