Cucumber Family
Cucurbitaceae (kew-ker-bih-TAY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Herbaceous vines with tendrils
- Leaves usually palmately lobed
- Flowers unisexual
- Inferior ovary
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Herbaceous vines with tendrils
- Leaves
- Generally simple (not divided into leaflets); usually palmately lobed (lobes radiating from a single point)
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
- Flowers
- Usually unisexual, with separate male and female flowers on same plant (monoecious)
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) of clusters of male flowers or solitary female flowers at the leaf axil (branching point)
- Star- or trumpet-shaped flowers, usually with 5 fused sepals (usually green, outer flower parts) and 5 fused petals
- Ovary inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit a berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall) or capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity), often gourd-like with a hard outer rind (pepo)
Notes
- Approximately 700 species worldwide
- Includes cucumber, pumpkin, squash, and watermelon
- The dried fibrous fruit of Luffa, a southern Asian vine, is the source of “loofah” sponges (Kirk 2016)
- Scientific name from the included genus Cucurbita, from the Latin for “gourd”
- California manroot (Marah fabacea) is the only representative of this family at Edgewood
Specific References
Kirk, L. 2016, Nov. 17. Luffa or loofah: How to grow and use this amazing plant. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.
Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.
Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.
Flora of North America. efloras.org.
Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.
Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.
Native American Ethnobotany DB.
Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.
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