Plants annual; roots taproots or fibrous. Stems creeping or climbing, rooting adventitiously at nodes, sometimes bushy to shrublike in cultivated forms, to 3 m, densely puberulent to hirsutulous, with scattered, longer hairs with from strongly to weakly pustulate (many-celled) bases absent or present; tendrils 2–7-branched 2–3 cm above base, hirsutulous to pubescent, eglandular, tendrils sometimes absent in plants with bushy habit. Leaves: petiole 4–9(–16) cm, hispidulous to hirsutulous, sometimes minutely stipitate-glandular; blade <sometimes white-spotted>, broadly ovate-cordate to triangular-cordate or suborbiculate, shallowly to deeply palmately (3–)5–7-lobed, 4–15(–18) × 5–17(–23) cm, ± as broad as long, base cordate, lobes ovate-deltate to obovate or obovate-rhombic, midveins of leaf lobes not distinctly elongate-whitened, margins denticulate to serrate-denticulate, surfaces hispidulous to hirsutulous, eglandular. Peduncles in fruit 5-ribbed, slightly expanded at point of fruit attachment, hardened, woody. Flowers: hypanthium campanulate, 8–12 mm; sepals linear to subulate-linear, 8–25 mm; corolla yellow to golden yellow or orange, tubular-campanulate, 4–10 cm; anther filaments glabrous; ovary pubescent. Pepos wholly light to dark green, green with white stripes, or minutely cream-or green-speckled to slate blue, ivory, yellow, orange, or bicolored green and yellow, globose or depressed-globose to ovoid, obovoid, ellipsoid-ovoid, broadly ellipsoid, slightly pyriform, cushion-shaped, or cylindric, 4–10 cm, smooth, ribbed, or warty, <flesh yellow to light orange or greenish or whitish, bitter or not>. Seeds whitish to cream or tawny, narrowly to broadly elliptic to obovate, rarely orbiculate, 7–15(–26) mm, margins raised-thickened and smooth, surface ± smooth. 2n = 40.
Home