CUCURBITACEAE (GOURD FAMILY) 407 
to thirty feet long, angular, grooved, smooth except for a few hairs 
at the joints. Leaves alternate thin, pale green, slightly rough 
on both sides with five triangular, pointed lobes or occasionally 
three- or seven-lobed, with slim, 
rather short petioles; opposite 
each leaf a three-forked tendril 
with a much longer footstalk. 
Flowers of two kinds, the stami- 
nate ones in long compound axil- 
‘lary racemes, the corollas deeply 
five- to six-parted, star-shaped, 
white, and fragrant; stamens 
three, with cohering anthers; 
below, in the same axil, are the 
inconspicuous pistillate flowers, 
usually solitary, but sometimes 
in twos or threes; ovary two- 
celled, with slender style and 
broad, hemispheric stigma. 
Fruit ovoid, nearly two inches 
long, covered with weak spines, 
two-celled, each cavity contain- 
ing two rough-coated seeds 
nearly an inch in length; these 
seeds are discharged somewhat 
forcibly by the sudden bursting of the “apple” at the top. 
(Fig. 284.) ° 
Fig. 284. — Climbing Wild Cucumber 
(Echinocystis lobata). X 4. 
Means of control 
The plant is seldom a nuisance except when spreading in home 
grounds. There the pistillate flowers should be nipped out before 
maturity — unless one prefers to pull cucumber seedlings from 
several outlying yards of ground for several seasons. Occasion- 
ally it may be found, like the preceding species, invading bottom 
land corn and tobacco fields. There it should receive the same 
treatment as recommended for Nimble Kate, of course before the 
first of the prickly “balsam apples” approach maturity. 
