Beautiful fruit is dark green striped with light green. This Italian heirloom has a pleasing, slightly nutty flavor. The compact bush type vines are ideal for small gardens. This squash is perfect for frying, steaming, freezing, and canning. Although we harvest the fruits when they are eight to ten inches in length, MM. Vilmorin-Andrieux (1885) stated, "All through Italy . . . the fruit is eaten quite young, when it is hardly the size of a cucumber, sometimes even before the flower has opened, when the ovary, which is scarcely as long or as thick as the finger, is gathered for use. The plants, thus deprived of their undeveloped fruits, continue to flower for several months most profusely . . ." This Italian heirloom is a garden staple. The plants are bush-type producing long cylindrical zucchini fruit that are dark green striped in lighter green. The flesh is greenish white and firm. Zones 3-10.