From compost, most likely a cross breed.

Maybe, but this is my first time growing them. The ones which were composted were from the store (which doesn't mean they weren't cross-bred before).

I don't know the name, there are so many shapes and colors of those. They are sold as ornamental gourds. assuming this is the final shape and size.

Now farmerdill has got me thinking (about something very very basic it is kind of embarrassing).

The (botony) question is: if two flowers cross-pollinate from different variety plants (in this case, squash), does the squash take on different characteristics? In my experience with other vegetables, like tomato and cucumber, when I plant one variety (like Big Beef tomato), I always get that variety even if next to it is a different variety (like Sweet 100 or Roma).

I was previously thinking that the seeds of the cross-pollinated variety would yield a cross-breed which had characteristics of both varieties. Is that wrong thinking?

Well the fruits of a plant reflect the genes of that plant only, not of any other plant that happens to be pollinating with/around it. It's the seeds INSIDE of these fruits that *possibly* contain a cross-bred set of genes.

You'd have to specifically choose those seeds and grow them to be able to see the cross bred fruit. And that's IF the seeds you choose had a cross bred set of genes after pollinating. Mendel discovered this and a simple allele crossing chart (I forget the actual name of them) visual describes what I'm saying.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:64029}}

That's what I was originally thinking (until I started overthinking it).

Thanks!