Melothria pendula L.

Creeping Cucumber; Melonette

Vine

Perennial

Vascular

Creeping Cucumber is a native herbaceous perennial vine in the Cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Creeping Cucumber occurs in bottomland hardwood forests, along creeks and streams, on moist roadsides, and in disturbed areas. It is a perennial with a tuberous root. The vines grow up to 6 feet in length and climb by unbranched tendrils. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, ovate to cordate in outline, entire to 3-5 lobed, with entire to remotely toothed margins. The surface of the leaf blade is rough pubescent. Flowers are produced from the axils of the leaves. Staminate flowers are in few flowered racemes and pistillate flowers are solitary, usually in same axils as staminate. Each flower has 5 green sepals and a 5-lobed yellow corolla. The staminate flowers are smaller than the pistillate flowers. The fruit is a green or mottled globose to ellipsoid pepo that turns purplish-black when mature. They young green or mottled fruit are edible, but the mature black fruit are purgative. — A. Diamond.

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Native FACW- (NWPL)

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