Sicyos edulisJacq.

chayote

WFO wfo-0000441493 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sicyos edulis, photographed by Romi Galeota Lencina
fig. a Romi Galeota Lencina, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-02 / obs. 185907236
Sicyos edulis, photographed by S.MORE
fig. b S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / obs. 174730306
Sicyos edulis, photographed by S.MORE
fig. c S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / obs. 174724099
Sicyos edulis, photographed by Matias Cabezas
fig. d Matias Cabezas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170514213
Sicyos edulis, photographed by Agnes Trekker
fig. e Agnes Trekker, CC0 1.0 / obs. 163904958
Sicyos edulis, photographed by GERMAN LEONEL SARMIENTO CRUZ
fig. f GERMAN LEONEL SARMIENTO CRUZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 136109335
Sicyos edulis, photographed by Leonel Roget
fig. g Leonel Roget, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126861010
Sicyos edulis, photographed by 葉子
fig. h 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 108604538

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 7 botanical countries

Regions where Sicyos edulis is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelize
Native distribution of Sicyos edulis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 996 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.6 °C 11.2 °C 20.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 25.3 °C 30.8 °C
Annual rainfall 745 mm 1,961 mm 4,406 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 24 mm 173 mm 561 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 996 research-grade observations of Sicyos edulis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 5 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Chayota edulis Jacq.
  • Sechium americanum Poir.
  • Sechium edule Sw.
  • Sechium edule subsp. edule
  • Sechium edule subsp. sylvestre Lira & J.Castrejón

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol SEED. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.