by JOHN OTT, JR.

I HAVE been photographing a pumpkin — a project which has presented various problems, particularly in regard to the sex life of a pumpkin. I have been working on this picture for two years. Last year I got some very good pictures.

First I might explain that a pumpkin is a member of the encumber family, which includes most of the squashes and melons, and is known as a monoecious plant. This means that it has separate male and female flowers on the same plant.

My pumpkin vine last year, for some reason, produced nothing but male flowers. This year I changed the conditions by increasing the light temperature of supplemental artificial light I gave it in addition to sunlight in order to simulate midsummer conditions during late winter — which was when I started photographing a pumpkin vine this year from the time I planted the seed. I also stepped up ihe fresh air circulation in my timelapse studio considerably. The result was nothing but female flowers on my pumpkin vine.

Thus, after having photographed a vine every five minutes over a period of several months from the time the seed was planted until it had grown over fifteen feet, I was confronted with the problem of a perfect female or pumpkin-producing flower which I figured would open the next day, and nothing but pictures of the male flower — and a year old at that.

In this difficult situation I decided to call my friend, Dr. Tukey, head of the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State College, to see if he had any pumpkins growing at this time of year in the department’s experimental greenhouses, and also to see If it might be possible to use any kind of artificial hormones, but “Tuke” had no pumpkins and advised that real pumpkin pollen would be best under these circumstances.

Next I called Dr. Dorsey at the University of Illinois, but he said that he was sorry, he had no pumpkin pollen at the moment either.

Then I called Dr. Julian Miller at Louisiana State University, since Dr. Miller had been very helpful on one previous occasion in settling a disputed question as to which end of a sweet potato is “up” when it comes to planting one in a jar of water. (He advised that this differs with various varieties and that the problem can be avoided by laying the potato on its side.) I was hoping that the pumpkins might be blooming in Louisiana at this time of year, but Dr. Miller told me there would be none for a week or ten days — which would be much too late for my beautiful pumpkin flower which I figured would be in full bloom the following morning.

I realized I would have to go a little farther south to find pumpkins in bloom, so I called Mr. Deatrick of the Flagler Hydroponic Gardens in Miami, and asked him if he could look around Florida to see if there were any male pumpkin flowers in bloom. After I explained the urgency of the situation, he said he would see what he could do. He called me back a little later in the morning, saying that he had spread the word by phone to over a hundred friends and that an appeal for pumpkin pollen had been published in the early edition of the Miami paper and broadcast on the radio.

By two o’clock that afternoon a lady living in Miami called in that she had a pumpkin vine with male flowers in bloom, which she would be willing to offer in this emergency. Eastern Air Lines heard of the plight of my lady pumpkin flower in full bloom and rushed the entire vine from Miami under the care of a special attendant on a nonstop plane to Chicago, which I met that evening. The passengers were all held on the plane until my pumpkin was unloaded and delivered to me. I rushed it out home to my time-lapse studio, where I introduced it to the lady in waiting, and I am now being called Uncle John by a lot of little pumpkins.