Usually juicy climbers or trailers, rarely somewhat woody or aborescent, usually with spirally coiled and often branched tendrils, borne laterally at the node
Distribution
Widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics, with a few species occuring in temperate regions
Floral characters
flowers axillary, unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious), usually radial, with short to elongate hypanthium sepals: 5, connate, often reduces petals: 5, connate, bell-shaped, with a narrow tube or flaring lobes, or nearly flat; white, yellow, orange or red stamens: 3 - 5; variously connate and modifies carpels: usually 3, connate, ovary half-inferior to inferior
Leaf characters
alternate, usually simple, often palmately lobed, +/- serrate, teeth cucurbitoid (i.e. with serveralveins entering tooth and ending at an expanded +/- translucent glandular apex
Stipules
absent
Fruit characters
berries, rind of lathery to hard fresh to dry, variously dehiscing capsules
Glands
present
Hairs
present; simple, with calcified walls and a cystolith at the base
Latex
absent
Uses
edible fruits: Cucurbita (pumpkins, winter and summer squashes, gourds); Cucumis (cantaloupe, muskmelon, honeydrew melon, cucumber), Citrullus (watermellon), Benincasa (wax gourd), Sechium (chayote) dried fruits of Largenia (bottle gourd) are used as containers dried fruits of Luffa are used as a vegetable sponge
Chemical characters
containing bitter tetra- and pentacyclic triterpenoid- saponins, called cucurbitacins, which have a laxative effect
Distribution maps
(online von http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/ . Dort zitiert wie unter jedem Diagramm vermerkt):
Cucurbitaceae
map: from Heywood 1978 [N. part of range]; Saade 1998; Florabase 2006
