Coccinia grandis |
Coccinia |
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ivy gourd, scarlet gourd |
coccinia, ivy gourd |
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Habit | Plants perennial, dioecious, climbing or trailing; stems annual, glabrous or glabrate [flocculent-arachnoid]; roots tuberous; tendrils unbranched [2-branched]. | |
Stems | glabrous or glabrate, sometimes rooting at nodes. |
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Leaves | petiole 1–5 cm; blade 5–10 × 4–9 cm, base cordate with broad sinus, apex acute, mucronate, adaxial surface with 3–8 glands. |
blade broadly ovate to rounded-cordate, subreniform, or deltate, unlobed or palmately 5-angular or -lobed, lobes deltate or triangular to broadly angular-elliptic, margins denticulate, adaxial surface with circular, sessile scales [hirsute to hirsutulous], often with glands on both sides of midrib near petiole. |
Inflorescences | staminate flowers solitary, [clustered, racemose, or in spikes], axillary; pistillate flowers solitary, axillary [racemose]; bracts absent. |
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Peduncles | 1–5 cm. |
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Flowers | sepals recurved, 2–5 mm; petals 15–20 mm, apices acute to obtuse-apiculate. |
hypanthium campanulate to turbinate; sepals 5, linear to subulate; petals 5, connate 1/2 length, bright white, often slightly green-veined [brownish yellow or orange], ovate to ovate-triangular, [8–]15–20[–62] mm, hirtellous or puberulent-hirtellous to glabrate, corolla campanulate. |
Staminate flowers | stamens 3; filaments inserted near hypanthium base, connate; thecae connate into central column and forming central oblong body, sigmoid-triplicate, connective broadened; pistillodes absent. |
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Pistillate flowers | ovary 3-locular, ovoid to fusiform; ovules ca. 15–40 per locule; style 1, narrowly columnar; stigma 1, 3-lobed; staminodes 3. |
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Fruits | pepos, usually green with white streaks or lines, sometimes red to scarlet at maturity, broadly cylindric to ellipsoid-cylindric, smooth, glabrous, indehiscent, flesh whitish to greenish. |
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Seeds | 6–8 mm, aril red to red-orange. |
30–50[–120], asymmetrically pyriform [ovoid or broadly ellipsoid], compressed, arillate, margins thickened or not bordered, surface fibrillose. |
Vines | climbing, widely spreading, sometimes prostrate. |
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Pepos | 2.5–6 cm. |
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x | = 12. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Coccinia grandis |
Coccinia |
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Phenology | Flowering May–Nov. | |
Habitat | Trash dumps, thickets, fencerows, cypress swamps | |
Elevation | 0–30 m (0–100 ft) | |
Distribution |
FL; TX; e Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also in Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam), Pacific Islands, Australia] |
s Asia; se Asia (India, Malaysia); Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also in Pacific Islands] |
Discussion | The shoot tips and immature fruits of Coccinia grandis are used in Asian and Indian cooking; long-range dispersal is often the result of introduction by humans. It sometimes has been misidentified as C. cordifolia (Linnaeus) Cogniaux. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Species ca. 30 (1 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 6, p. 45. | FNA vol. 6, p. 44. |
Parent taxa | Cucurbitaceae > Coccinia | Cucurbitaceae |
Subordinate taxa | ||
Synonyms | Bryonia grandis | |
Name authority | (Linnaeus) Voigt: Hort. Suburb. Calcutt., 59. (1845) | Wight & Arnott: Prodr. Fl. Ind. Orient. 1: 347. (1834) |
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