English: Wild cucumber; Prickly cucumber.
Clades:
Cucurbitaceae.
Genus: 1 species.
Use: seeds as beads.
BotanyHerb; annual; clinging vine, sprawling
Region: North America.
Stems: up to 8 m long; climbing with coiling, branched tendrils, over shrubs, fences or across the ground; angular; furrowed.
Leaves: alternate; long petioles; five palmate lobes; no stipules.
Flowers: monoecious, separate male and female;
Male flowers; in long-stemmed, upright panicles; white, or greenish-yellow; corolla with six slender lobes; single central stamen with a yellow anther.
Female flower: single stigma; borne on a short stalk at the base of the flower panicle; ovary spiky, globular; inferior; immediately beneath.
Fruit: prickly; inflated; capsule; up to 5 cm long; with two pores, 4 seeds; resembles a tiny spiny water melon, or cucumber; inedible; persists all winter; opens at the bottom