North American Bur Cucumber Gardens Away From Gourd Family Members

Summary: North American bur cucumber gardens beautify and better fence lines, meadows, roadsides and wastelands but blast gourd family members with viruses.

bur cucumber plant's flower, fruit, leaves, stem and tendrils; Wakefield Park, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, 12:39:38: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (FritzFlohrReynolds), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Master arborists, master gardeners, master naturalists and tree stewards appreciate the authentic vining beauty of flowery, fruity, leafy North American bur cucumber gardens when they anticipate no cucumber, cucurbit or tobacco viruses.

The eastern North American native herb in the Cucurbitaceae family of herbaceous gourds beautifies fence lines, neglected meadows and waste lands but besieges cultivated edible crops. It carries, along with the non-native, related wild cucumber conveyed from Europe to North America, cucumber and cucurbit mosaic viral diseases and communicates tobacco streak virus. Africa's balsam apple delivers celery, melon and papaya viruses while wild cucumber disseminates plum family-destructive viral diseases even though no North American government designates them weeds.

The non-native ivy gourd of India, North Africa and southeast Asia endures weed sanctions in Hawaii and bur cucumber experiences them in Delaware, Indiana and Kentucky.

Seedling stages favor oval embryonic leaves, called cotyledons, with prominent, thick veins, atop stems with downward-pointing hairs before the first leaf stage's alternate-arranged, hairy, lobed foliage.

Maturity gives bur cucumber, also nicknamed nimble kate, one-seeded bur cucumber, star cucumber, wall bur cucumber and wild pickle, alternate-arranged, palm-shaped, rough-surfaced, three- to five-lobed foliage. Mature bur cucumber has clasping, twining tendrils with three forked branches, leaf axil unions of leaves with angular, clammy-haired stems and round to heart-shaped foliar bases. Richard Dickinson, in Weeds of North America, University of Chicago Press publication from 2014, identifies both female and male flower-clustered inflorescences inclining from the same axil.

North American bur cucumber gardens juggle female flowers joined together in head-like clusters on 1.97- to 3.15-inch- (5- to 8-centimeter-) long stalks and male-flowering stalked panicles.

Branching, imperfect, pyramid-shaped, regular inflorescences, called panicles, keep three stamens, five petals and five sepals on flowers 0.32 to 0.39 inches (8 to 10 millimeters) across.

Female, imperfect, regular floral clusters look green-white like male inflorescences but load up with one pistil, five petals and, like each male flower, five small sepals. Green-white-flowering bur cucumber, with July to September blooms, minimizes ground reflection loss with white-blooming ivy gourd, yellow-flowering balsam apple and golden creeper and yellow-green-flowering wild cucumber. Flowering stages in bur cucumber, scientifically named Sicyos angulatus (angular cucumber), nudge into fruiting stages with dry, single-seeded fruits nestled into clusters of two to 30.

North American bur cucumber gardens respectively offer 400, 1,600 and 80,000 seeds from fruits, called pepoes, on each wild cucumber, balsam apple and bur cucumber annual.

Bur cucumber, scientifically described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), produces 0.34- to 0.47-inch- (8.6- to 12-millimeter-) long, 0.24-inch- (6-millimeter-) wide seeds.

Germination quickens in the top 5.91 inches (15 centimeters) of soil after the black to dark brown, oval, prickly, warty seeds of unknown viability quit dormancy. Weeds of North America references an extended germination period and growth habit that results in bur cucumber flowering, fruiting and seeding until the first, end-of-the-year frost. Temperature, not depth, sprouts balsam apple at 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and, after dormancy-breaking chills, wild cucumber at 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

North American bur cucumber gardens twirl climbing, creeping balsam apple, bur cucumber, goldencreeper, ivy gourd and wild cucumber vines away from cucumbers, luffa, melons and squash.

Bur cucumber plant (Sicyos angulatus) produces long, twining stems: Bruce Ackley, The Ohio State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

bur cucumber plant's flower, fruit, leaves, stem and tendrils; Wakefield Park, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, 12:39:38: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (FritzFlohrReynolds), CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/fritzflohrreynolds/9683382214/

Bur cucumber plant (Sicyos angulatus) produces long, twining stems: Bruce Ackley, The Ohio State University, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5436710

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "1. Sicyos angulata." Species Plantarum, vol. II: 1013. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/359034

"Sicyos angulatus L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/9201537

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.