Cucumis aculeatus Cogn.

Herb trailing or climbing to 2–3 m.; stems ridged, prickly, with the prickles yellow-green, recurved, of varying degrees of stoutness, some fine and hair-like, some thorn-like; basal stems gnarled, thickened, whitish-barked, arising from a somewhat thickened fleshy perennial rootstock.. Leaf-blade prickly to the touch, scabrid-hairy above and beneath and the nerves beneath with scattered prickles similar to those of the stem, ovate-oblong in outline, weakly cordate or subtruncate at the base, obscurely to distinctly sinuate-toothed, 20–91 mm. long, 22–76 mm. broad, unlobed or ± distinctly palmately 3–5-lobed; lobes ovate to broadly elliptic, the lateral ones small and usually subtriangular; petiole 10–38 mm. long, prickly like the stems.. Male flowers solitary, on 1.5–6 mm. long pedicels; receptacle-tube green, 3–4.5 mm. long; lobes filiform, 2–3 mm. long; petals pale yellow with green veins, 5.5–9 mm. long, 2.5–4 mm. broad, united below.. Female flowers on 6–17 mm. long pedicels; ovary green, covered with bulbous-based yellow-green hairs, fusiform, 10–12 mm. long, 4–6 mm. across; receptacle-tube 3–3.5 mm. long; lobes triangular-lanceolate, 2–5 mm. long; petals 8–13 mm. long, 3.5–5 mm. broad, apiculate, shortly united below.. Fruit (fig. 15/4, p. 95) on a stout 15–25 mm. long stalk, obovoid-ellipsoid, bluntly trigonous, 50–71 mm. long, 34–50 mm. across, pustulate with scattered low conical pustules each ending in a hyaline bristle, pale green ripening yellow.. Seeds elliptic in outline, lenticular, smooth, 6.5 × 3 × 1.5 mm.

Bushland, wooded grassland, grassland; edge of gallery forest with Euphorbia, savannah; disturbed Juniperus forest; at elevations from 1,000-2,400 metres.

The young fruit are eaten raw. Ripe fruit are cooked and eaten or sliced into a paste used with vegetables. They are bitter. The leaves are cooked as a vegetable and also dried and stored.

Can be grown by seedlings.