CUCURBITACEAE
Morphological description
Climbing or creeping, usually herbaceous.
Leaves
Leaves spiral, simple, indented or lobed; tendril lateral to leaf. Sometimes leaves with 2 glands on top of petiole (Lagenaria); leaves deeply bipinnatifid (Citrullus)
Inflorescence
Inflorescence,
Flowers
Flower nearly actinomorphic, unisexual, ovary inferior. Corolla yellow, placentation parietal; corolla red (Bayabusua); corolla fimbriate (Trichosanthes).
Fruit
Fruit a berry. Ripe fruit with fibrous skeleton (Luffa). Fruit with truncate top (Neoalsomitra, Zanonia); fruits 1-seeded (Sechium); large 6-seeded fruit (Hodgsonia).
Seed
Seed numerous. Sometimes seeds winged (Alsomitra, Zanonia).
Different from: Passifloraceae: flowers with a corona, ovary superior, tendril axillary. - Vitaceae: flowers much smaller, ovary superior, tendril leaf-opposed.
Distribution: The family widespread. In Malesia 17 genera, including : - Coccinea (mainly Africa, 1 Indonesia), forest + open places; - Hodgsonia (Indo-Malesia), rain forest liana; - Momordica (paleotropics), rain forest + secondary forest; - Trichosanthes (Southeast Asia to North Australia), rain forest + secondary forest..
Notes: Many species with edible parts (fruits or young leaves): Benincasa*, Citrullus*, Coccinea, Cucumis*, Cucurbita*, Luffa, Momordica, Sechium*, Trichosanthes. - Fruits used as container: Lagenaria.
Literature: A. Cogniaux, Pflanzenreich Heft 66 (1916) 1-277; A. Cogniaux & H. Harms, Pflanzenreich Heft 88 (1924) 1-246; C. Jeffrey, Kew Bull. 15 (1962) 337-371. - Drs W. J.J.O. de Wilde, B.E.E. de Wilde-Duyfjes (L) and Rugayah (BO) are revising the family for Flora Malesiana.
Spot characters (Van Balgooy): Cucurbitaceae 4, 62, 63, 64, 92 - Alsomitra suberosa 15 - Cyclanthera 95 - Diplocyclos 85 - Ecballium 95 - Hodgsonia 81, 94 - Lagenaria 31 - Luffa 31 - Macrozanonia 102 - Momordica 31, 95 - Muellerargia 95 - Neoalsomitra 2, 12, 102 - Oreomitra 52 - Trichosanthes 31, 81, 95 - Zanonia 102.
Illustrations: Fig. 63. Gymnopetalum cochinchinense (Lour.) Kurz (Cucurbitaceae). Reproduced from C.A. Backer, Weed Flora of Javanese Sugar-cane fields, Atlas pt 16 (1973) t. 687. Fig. 64. Melothria cissybium M. Jacobs (Cucurbitaceae). Female plant. a. Habit; b. flowerc. style; d. fruit; e. seeds; f. section through upper part of one cell of the fruit, showing two young seeds in their membranous coat. Reproduced from Blumea 7 (1954) 619, fig. 2. c b f d e a. Fig. 65. Momordica cochinchinensis (Lour.) Spr. (Cucurbitaceae). Reproduced from M. R. Henderson, Malayan wild flowers, Dicotyledons (1949/51, repr. 1974) 156. With kind permission of the Malaysian Nature Society. Fig. 66. Trichosanthes anguina L. (Cucurbitaceae). Reproduced from J.J. Ochse & R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink, Vegetables of the Dutch East Indies (1980) fig. 127.
Image in PhytoImages for Cucurbitaceae