Summer Gourds at Jindai Botanical Gardens

This gourd is so heavy it needs a sling!

This is the name plate for the gourd in the photo above. The first symbol is kanji for dai, tai or ookii which means "big". The rest of the name is written in hiragana and can be transcribed as daruma hyotan (long o).

The name plate says that these gourds are called tsuru kubi hyotan (long o).

Kids Web Japan-- hiragana
Kids Web Japan-- kanji