The gourd is hung on the door frame to attract good fortune and ward off evil spirits. Gourd is a vine. With its long vines, abundant fruits and numerous seeds, the Chinese regard it as an auspicious plant symbolizing the prosperity of their descendants. Branches and vines are homophonic to ten thousand, which means longevity. Folk tradition believes that gourds are auspicious and ward off evil spirits. It is a custom of the Dragon Boat Festival to put peach branches and gourds on the doors. Modern qigong tests have proven that gourds have the function of isolating the aura. There is a folk saying that one does not know what kind of medicine is sold in the gourd, which means that it is difficult to penetrate the gourd to see what is inside. From the Feng Shui field analysis, it is the magical function of the curved outer shape of the gourd to contain the S-shaped dividing line between yin and yang in Tai Chi. Therefore, it is often used in Feng Shui to eliminate evil spirits.
Gourd, a plant belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae and the genus Cucurbita, is a climbing plant, an annual climbing herb with soft hairs, white flowers in summer and autumn, and is a monoecious plant. The vine of the gourd can reach 15 meters long, and the fruit is Can vary from 10 centimeters to one meter.
Gourds like a warm, wind-sheltered environment and require a lot of space when planting. Seedlings are afraid of freezing. Fresh gourds have green skin and white flesh. The fruits are also called gourds and can be harvested and eaten as vegetables when immature.
Each cultivated type of gourd has different lengths of vines, sizes of leaves and flowers, and sizes and shapes of fruits. The fruits are club-shaped, scoop-shaped, dolphin-shaped, pot-shaped, etc. The name of the type also depends on the fruit shape. In addition, in ancient times, people dried gourds in the sun and hollowed them out to make objects for holding things.