Round gourd, also known as tinda, is a squash-like, monoecious, tendril-bearing, cucurbit cultivated in Asia, Africa, and North America for its fruits, seeds, and leaves. Its fruits are good source of calcium, phosphorous, and ascorbic acid besides having anti-diabetic, anti-tumor, and anthelmintic properties. Although its taxonomic position has remained controversial since long, Praecitrullus fistulosus (Stocks) Pangalo is its most accepted scientific name. The plant has fibrous and shallow root system. It bears unisexual, pentamerous, and actinomorphic flowers having inferior and unilocular ovary. Its immature fruits, botanically called pepo, are cooked as a vegetable. The crop is considered to have originated in north-western India, but its wild progenitors are unknown. Since it is not crossable with any other related species, only the released varieties, land races, farmers’ varieties, and breeding lines constitute its primary gene pool which can be enriched through exploration in areas of its cultivation. Majority of its germplasm collections are conserved at National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India; National Plant Germplasm System, the United States of America; and National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan. The evaluated accessions have low to below medium genetic variability for various traits. Although the crop faces many biotic (watermelon bud necrosis virus, Zucchini yellow mosaic potyvirus, downy mildew, powdery mildew, anthracnose, fruit rot, wilt, whitefly, aphid, leaf miner, thrips, mite, and fruit fly) and abiotic stresses (high temperature, low temperature, and high humidity), useful donors have yet been identified for only a few traits. Mutation breeding has been advocated to generate novel variation.