Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

MOCK-CUCUMBER

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Echinocystis lobata (Michx. ) Torr. & A. Gray

Brown County, Kansas

Annual

Height: Vines 15-24 feet long

Family: Cucurbitaceae - Gourd Family

Flowering Period: April, May, June

Also Called:

Wild balsam-apple.

Stems:

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.

Inflorescences:

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

Flowers:

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.

Fruits:

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.

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

Origin:

Native

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).

Comments:

Echinocystis, hedgehog and bladder, alluding to the fruit, and lobata, lobed. Mock-cucumber is easily propagated by seeds, grow rapidly, blooms abundantly for a long period, and makes an attractive coverage for trellises, arbors, low walls, and wire fences.

Mock-cucumber flower