In last decades, when many diseases were associated to lifestyle, especially to food quality, researcher attention was guided to find alternative sources in nature. Nowadays, a large range of crops has been identified to play an important role in different industries as follows: food, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, medicinal, decorative etc. Cucurbitaceae species are valuable resources thanks to their nutritional quality. The chemical content of Cucurbitaceae species allows mainly the usage of fruits, seeds, flowers as raw material for multiple purposes. The aim of paper was to present a part of Cucurbitaceae genetic resources in order to highlight the enormous potential of species to be used in different purposes as food, medicinal, decorative. The paper presents a list of spontaneous and cultivated Cucurbitaceae in Romanian region, used as medicinal, food and decorative. Our study provides information about their traditional medicinal use. In investigated region, Cucurbitaceae species are cultivated mainly for their use as vegetables and spices. For species falling under the genera Lagenaria, Cucurbita, Citrullus, Luffa, Momordica the study presented information related to nutritional profile and yield potential of the most valuable cucurbit genetic resources included in our breeding programs.
