Pumpkin seeds are the mature seeds of Cucurbita fruits. Hull-less “pepita” types and ordinary hulled pumpkin seeds are related but visually quite different.1
The seed sits inside the fibrous cavity of a mature squash or pumpkin. Its relationship to squash blossoms is direct: both are parts of the same cucurbit plant.
The white part around an ordinary pumpkin seed is a tough hull; the green kernel lies inside it. Hull-less or “naked-seeded” pumpkins carry a mutation that reduces cellulose and lignin in the seed coat, leaving only a thin covering around the kernel.2
The green kernel contains no starch and may be roughly half oil and more than a third protein. Its color combines chlorophyll with yellow-orange carotenoids. Oil pressed from raw seeds is green, while heating and wetting the meal extracts more carotenoids; the resulting oil can look dark brown in a bottle yet emerald green when spread in a thin layer.3
Footnotes
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University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Pumpkin Seeds, Roasted,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩
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Todd N. Bezold et al., “Molecular Analysis of the Hull-Less Seed Trait in Pumpkin,” University of New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, 2005. ↩
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Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, rev. ed. (Scribner, 2004), PDF p. 528. ↩