Mock-cucumber

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Mock-cucumber flower

Mock-cucumber leaf

Mock-cucumber fruit

Mock-cucumber

Mock-cucumber fruit

Mock-cucumber habit

Mock-cucumber leaf

Morphology

Stem

Vines slender, climbing, trailing, or clambering, glabrous; tendrils usually 3-branched.

Leaves

Cauline, alternate, simple; petiole present; blade palmately 5-7-lobed, 1.8 to 4 inches long, 2 to 5.1 inches wide, surfaces glabrous, lobes acute, margins finely serrate.

Inflorescence

Staminate flowers in racemes or panicles; pistillate flowers solitary; pistillate peduncle .8 to 2 inches long.

Flower

Unisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5, connate, fused to corolla and forming hypanthium; hypanthium cup-like; calyx lobes filiform, .04 to .06 inch; corolla white, wheel-shaped, .12 to .25 inch long, .3 to .6 inch wide; petals 5(-6), distinct or connate; stamens 5(-6), usually with 4 connate in pairs (stamens appearing to be 3); pistil 1, (2-)3(-5)-carpellate; ovary inferior, prickly, 1-3-locular; style usually 1; stigmas (2-)3.

Fruit

Pepos, green, ovoid, dehiscing irregularly at apex, 1.2 to 2 inches, prickly; prickles smooth. Seeds 4, brown, elliptic, flattened, .6 to .8 inch, usually roughened along margins.

Ecology

Habitat

Moist soil of prairie ravines, thickets, creek banks, and pond margins, sometimes along roadsides or in waste places.

Distribution

East half and northwest quarter of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Native Americans applied a poultice of pulverized root for headaches and took an infusion of root for fevers, rheumatism, and stomach disorders (Moerman 1998).

Additional Notes