Clearly there is a difference of opinion on this. It is a fact many British gardeners have always called their oversized courgettes ‘marrows’. It isn’t surprising as the vegetable marrow (as it was traditionally called) has been an important vegetable on these isles long before the courgette ever made its appearance (or had the courgette been here all along just in the guise of an immature vegetable marrow?).
Vegetable marrows were recorded as early as the 1800s in the UK but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the courgette really started to make an impact here. Courgette is the French name for the small ‘marrow-like fruits’ we shall call them.The Italians call them zucchini and it was the Italian immigrants that took that name to the US, hence why they are more commonly called zucchini there.
There are many colour variations in courgettes
So are they the same but different? Well, the Latin name Cucurbita pepo is given to marrows, courgettes or zucchini. So we have confirmed one thing: they are all in the same family cucurbita and they are all in the same species (pepo).Thereafter, it can get more complicated. Plant breeders have been tinkering with C.pepo by natural cross breeding within the family. So we now have many varieties that are tweaked genetic code variations of Cucurbita pepo. Now we have yellow courgettes, stripy courgettes, ribbed courgettes, round courgettes, white courgettes, green marrows, stripy marrows and all the shades of colours in between.