Home
A herb. It is a pumpkin family plant. It is a creeper that keeps growing from year to year. The stems can be 3 m long. It has a fleshy taproot. These are 5-20 cm long by 2-3 cm wide. It has a brown skin and spongy inner flesh. Leaves have lobes and teeth around the edge. The leaves are hairy. Plants are separately male and female. The flowers are small and bright yellow. The fruit are small and prickly. They have stripes along them. They are 3-6 cm long by 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are 6-7 mm long by 304 mm wide and 2 mm thick.
Leaf-lamina 6·5–12·5 × 3·5–10 cm., ovate or ovate-oblong in outline, finely setulose or hispid above and more densely so beneath, becoming scabrid, deeply palmately (3)5(7)-lobed, lobes elliptic, narrowly oblong-elliptic or lanceolate, obtuse to acute, apiculate, sinuate-dentate or sinuate-lobulate, the central much the largest.
Fruit 3–5·5 × 2–3 cm., oblong or oblong-ellipsoid, rounded at the ends, densely shortly softly spiny, green or greenish-white, longitudinally variegated with brownish-purple; spines 2–5 mm. long, laterally compressed, rather thick; fruit-stalk stout, c. 2 cm. long, slightly expanded upwards.
Female flowers solitary; pedicels (4)8–10 mm. long; ovary c. 13 × 5 mm., ellipsoid, densely setose; perianth rather larger than in male flowers, otherwise similar.
male flowers solitary or 2–3 in small fascicles; pedicels 8–10(20) mm. long. Receptacle-tube 5–7 mm. long; lobes 2·5–5 mm. long. Petals 5·5–10 mm. long, yellow.
Perennial; stems prostrate, to 3 m., sparsely setulose, rooting at nodes, arising from tuberous roots up to 1 m. below ground.
Seeds 6–7 × 3–4 × 1·5–2 mm., elliptic in outline, smooth, pallid, subcompressed.
Petioles 1–5 cm. long, aculeate-setulose, becoming scabrid.
Flowers dioecious.
