Tender creeping-cucumber

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Tender creeping-cucumber habit

Tender creeping-cucumber leaves

Tender creeping-cucumber fruit

Tender creeping-cucumber

Tender creeping-cucumber fruit

Tender creeping-cucumber leaf

Morphology

Stem

Slender, climbing, trailing, or clambering, glabrous or hispid; tendrils unbranched.

Leaves

Cauline, alternate, simple; petiole present; blade nearly entire or 3-5-angled or 3-5-lobed, 1.2 to 3.2 inches long, .6 to 2.8 inches wide, surfaces glabrous or hispid, lobes obtuse to acute, margins dentate to serrate.

Inflorescence

Staminate flowers in racemes or umbel-like cymes; pistillate flowers usually solitary; pistillate peduncle .6 to 1.8 inch.

Flower

Hypanthium bell-shaped; calyx lobes 5, triangular; corolla yellow to orange yellow, wheel-shaped to bell-shaped, .01 to .02 long, .2 to .4 inch wide, petals 5; ovary glabrous; stamens 5; pistil 1; style 1; stigmas 2-3.

Fruit

Pepos, green, often mottled with light green or white patches, sometimes turning purple, ellipsoid to nearly globose, indehiscent, .03 to 1 inch long, .03 to .6 inch wide, glabrous; seeds 30-60, ovate to elliptic, .08 to .16 inch, flattened, smooth.

Ecology

Habitat

Floodplain forests, stream banks, roadsides, thickets, fencerows, and disturbed areas

Distribution

Southern counties of southeastern 1/4 of Kansas

Additional Notes