Japanese Bottle Gourds: Varieties, Shapes and Sizes

Bottle gourds are practically symbolic to the world of gourders and gourd crafters. The hour-glass shape is appealing to the eye; they are beautiful to decorate and hold. Bottle gourds come in several varieties of shapes and sizes, from the Mexican bottle gourd, which looks like something from the days of Aladdin, to the beautiful shapes of the Japanese bottle gourds.

Most of the gourds were given names based on size and shape, or names after the function they served. Dipper gourds are named dipper gourds because they are used as dippers, snake gourds and banana gourds are names as such because of their long shapes. In Japan however, the Japanese bottle gourds are named differently. The Sennari, one of the smallest of the Japanese gourds, is called Sennari because it means, "Thousand gourd", meaning that during a good season with proper pruning and care, a thousands of these gourds can be harvested from one vine. The Hyakunari means, "Hundred Gourd", again meaning a hundred gourds harvested from one vine.

How many gourds a vine can support also has a lot to do with how large or small the gourd is, and how long the vine has to work to bring it to maturity. part of the reason a Mini-Sennari gourd can produce 1000 is because they are small measuring in at 2.25 to 3.75 inches in height.

The Japanese also hold some of the largest and prettiest bottle gourds also, measuring in at sizes ranging from 17 inches to 31 inches in height, these are very large bottle gourds, and a beautiful sight to behold. The names for the the largest Japanese bottle gourds are Tenka-ichi, Kunisake-ichi, Tateyama-ichi, and Tsukuba-ichi. Unlike the naming convention for the other gourds, these gourds get their name from the location of origin. The bottle shaped gourd is special, and the "ichi" at the end of these means, "One", not as in the counting of the number one, but rather as, "The one", or the special one, perhaps the largest one. The first part of the name is from the location of origin, so the Tateyama-ichi is from Tateyama, Chiba, Japan, Tsukuba is from the Tsukuba area of Japan, etc.

If you would like to learn a lot about gourdiculture and Japanese gourd art, or even if you don't, I think you will enjoy flipping through this Japanese gourd book. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the single arrow, there are several pages going through the finishing processes of their gourd products.

Japanese Gourd Book
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.toshinao.com/hyotan/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhyotan%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_ja%26sa%3DG%26as_qdr%3Dall

Gourds are an artistic medium. If you would like to learn more about gourds, please visit The Gourd Reserve, with over 800 pages of gourd related information and artwork. You can also find more short articles on gourds and growing gourds here on my AC producer page.