
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.
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