#wild cucumber

[oddarette]

Wild_Cucumber.exe Included a reference photo I took because people need to know how cool these are.

[chaparraljournal]

A glimpse of a wild cucumber (Marah fabacea) to showcase the capabilities of its tendrils to grasp surrounding plant stems and branches to support itself as it grows.

It’s a manroot vine that grows very rapidly and can reach twenty feet as it sprawls across and over everything in its path. Eventually it will produce small white flowers and a funky spiked fruit.

[crudlynaturephotos]

[quinnfrankephotography]

Lots of wildlife on my walk this morning. It started nice and cool and was hot right at the end.

[wildflowers-of-southern-ontario]

Wild Cucumber Echinocystis lobata Cucurbitaceae

Photographs taken on October 7, 2021, along the Culham Trail, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

[persephonaae]

California manroot - Marah fabacea

[thebashfulbotanist]

This is a rather long photoset, but there is just so much going on what this plant! And I didn’t even get to see the root! This is Marah oreganus, coastal manroot. The root on this plant literally can be as large as a person, and it can be over 2 meters in length and weigh over 100 kilograms! This giant root was used by Coast Salish people in what’s now Washington State for a number of uses, but often to make soap - and it’s still sometimes used for this purpose. The genus “Marah”, meaning bitter, refers to how bitter the entire plant, including the root, tastes. It even smells pretty bitter when you cut into the fruit!

The male flowers occur in lovely spikes, which blanket whatever this vine has draped itself over (or climbed up! When I saw it, it was about 3 meters up a tree). The female flowers are more spaced out to accommodate the growth of the plant’s bizarre fruit, which looks a little like a spiky cucumber. Sometimes people will collect the fruit and dry it to make natural loofas! I don’t see this plant too often, probably because it tends to grow along streams and rivers. I found this one next to the Pilchuck River (fun fact, Pilchuck means “red water” in Chinook Jargon) in Washington State.

[cacioybebe]

Wild cucumber flowers I foraged in Elysian