Pumpkin Tree

A ribbed orange pumpkin, 2.6 inches tall, with a green stem and a scatter of pale dots. It looks right on a shelf all October. It also keeps a second shape to itself.

Scroll, and pick it up.

Eight ribs and a stem

About 2.6 inches tall and 3 inches across. The body is one long ribbon of orange and green, wound tight, with pale dots set into the skin.

Pick it up by the stem

That ribbon is one continuous spiral. Lift it and every turn lets go of the turn below, all the way down.

Hmm.

Fully open it hangs about 7.6 inches long, and honestly, it looks like a butternut squash. So why is it called a Pumpkin Tree?

Turn off the lights.

There it is.

Three tiers, a trunk and a glowing outline. The dots were a pine all along: 108 of them, placed so the tree reads from the front and from the back.

No batteries, no LEDs

The dots are glow-in-the-dark plastic. A while under a lamp or daylight charges them, and they give that light back in the dark. There is nothing to switch on.

Let go

Set it down and the spiral closes back into a pumpkin, ready for the shelf until the next time the lights go out.

Up close

The closed pumpkin on a wooden shelf beside a lit candle, with autumn gourds behind it — Closed, on a shelf beside a candle and the season's gourds.

The pumpkin stretched open, hanging from twine on an evergreen branch in daylight — Hung from twine on an evergreen branch, open to its full length.

In a dark room, glowing dots trace a tiered pine tree, with the body faintly visible behind them — In a dark room the dots trace the tiers, and the body is only just visible behind them.

Pumpkin Tree

A pumpkin for the shelf, a pine for the dark, in one piece.

Closed: 2.6 in tall, 3 in across
Lifted by the stem: About 7.6 in long
Weight: About 0.8 oz
Made from: PETG in orange and green, with 108 glow-in-the-dark dots
Power: None. The dots recharge under ordinary room light or daylight.