- Family: Cucurbitaceae Juss.
Melothria L.
[FTEA]
Cucurbitaceae, C. Jeffrey. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 1967
- Morphology General Habit
- Herbaceous climbers; stems sparsely crisped-hairy
- Morphology Leaves
- Leaves simple, palmately lobed, petiolate
- Morphology General Tendrils
- Tendrils simple
- Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers
- Flowers rather small, yellow, monoecious Female flowers solitary, stalked; ovary subcylindrical, terete; ovules many, horizontal; perianth and disk as in ♂ flower; staminodes 3, short, subulate, inserted on tube; stigma 3-lobed Male flowers in shortly racemiform or subumbellate simple or compound pedunculate clusters, pedicellate; receptacle-tube campanulate; lobes rather small, lanceolate; petals united at the base; stamens 3, 2 double 2-thecous, 1 single 1-thecous, shortly inserted on about the middle of the tube; anthers subpeltate; thecae straight, apically hooked; disk cup-shaped, not distinct from base of receptacle-tube
- sex Male
- Male flowers in shortly racemiform or subumbellate simple or compound pedunculate clusters, pedicellate; receptacle-tube campanulate; lobes rather small, lanceolate; petals united at the base; stamens 3, 2 double 2-thecous, 1 single 1-thecous, shortly inserted on about the middle of the tube; anthers subpeltate; thecae straight, apically hooked; disk cup-shaped, not distinct from base of receptacle-tube
- sex Female
- Female flowers solitary, stalked; ovary subcylindrical, terete; ovules many, horizontal; perianth and disk as in ♂ flower; staminodes 3, short, subulate, inserted on tube; stigma 3-lobed
- Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits
- Fruit rather large, cylindrical-ellipsoid, rounded apically, smooth, rather firm-walled, fleshy, indehiscent, cream with green streaks
- Morphology Reproductive morphology Seeds
- Seeds rather large, ovate in outline, compressed, smooth, pure white
- Figures
- Fig. 20, p. 118.
Native to:
Alabama, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Arkansas, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Delaware, District of Columbia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Florida, French Guiana, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Illinois, Indiana, Jamaica, Kansas, Kentucky, Leeward Is., Louisiana, Maryland, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Mississippi, Missouri, Nicaragua, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Panamá, Paraguay, Pennsylvania, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Suriname, Tennessee, Texas, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Virginia, Windward Is.
Introduced into:
Angola, Benin, Borneo, Cameroon, Central African Repu, China Southeast, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Lesser Sunda Is., Liberia, Malaya, Nigeria, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sulawesi, Taiwan, Uganda, Zaïre
- Melothria campestris (Naudin) H.Schaef. & S.S.Renner
- Melothria cucumis Vell.
- Melothria dulcis Wunderlin
- Melothria hirsuta Cogn.
- Melothria longituba C.Jeffrey
- Melothria pendula L.
- Melothria pringlei (S.Watson) Mart.Crov.
- Melothria scabra Naudin
- Melothria schulziana Mart.Crov.
- Melothria sphaerocarpa (Cogn.) H.Schaef. & S.S.Renner
- Melothria trilobata Cogn.
- Melothria warmingii Cogn.
Melothria L. appears in other Kew resources:
First published in Sp. Pl.: 35 (1753)
Accepted by
- Govaerts, R., Nic Lughadha, E., Black, N., Turner, R. & Paton, A. (2021). The World Checklist of Vascular Plants, a continuously updated resource for exploring global plant diversity. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00997-6 Scientific Data 8: 215.
Literature
Flora of West Tropical Africa
- —F.T.A. 2: 562.
Flora of Tropical East Africa
Flora of Tropical East Africa
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
Kew Backbone Distributions
The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2021. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
© Copyright 2017 World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone
The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families 2021. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/
© Copyright 2017 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0