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Ecballium elaterium
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Ecballium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cucurbitaceae containing a single species, Ecballium elaterium, also called the squirting cucumber. Its unusual common name derives from the ripe fruit squirting a stream of mucilaginous liquid containing its seeds as a means of seed dispersal, an example of rapid plant movement.
OverviewAI-generated
Ecballium elaterium is a species of plant in the family Cucurbitaceae. It belongs to the order Cucurbitales, class Magnoliopsida, and phylum Tracheophyta within the kingdom Plantae. The species is commonly known as Maltese elaterium.
The plant is native to Albania, Algeria, Baleares, Bulgaria, the Canary Islands, Corse, Cyprus, the East Aegean Islands, France, Greece, Iran, and Italy. Records from iDigBio indicate its presence in the United States, Greece, France, Germany, and Italy. The species has 48,286 occurrence records and 587 records with 497 media items.
Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life, Gbif Occ, Plants of the World, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Species
SPECIES
- KingdomPlantae
- PhylumTracheophyta
- ClassMagnoliopsida
- OrderCucurbitales
- FamilyCucurbitaceae
喷瓜（学名：Ecballium elaterium），为葫芦科喷瓜属下的一个植物种，人称‘生物地雷’。這種植物，特別是它的果實，是有毒的。
via GBIF · Kew POWO
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 587
- With media
- 497
- Family
- Cucurbitaceae
- Collections
- CHSC, DBG, SFV, CDA, RSA, MEL
- Recorded in
- United States, Greece, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Romania, Georgia
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Description
- Distribution
- Seed dispersal
- History in folk medicine
- References
- External links
Ecballium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cucurbitaceae containing a single species, Ecballium elaterium, also called the squirting cucumber. Its unusual common name derives from the ripe fruit squirting a stream of mucilaginous liquid containing its seeds as a means of seed dispersal, an example of rapid plant movement.
==Description== Ecballium elaterium is a herbaceous perennial plant with a tuberous root, usually traling on the ground but sometimes shrubby, with bristly stems. The leaves are lobed, greyish-green, and rough-surfaced and bristly-hairy. The flowers have a five-lobed yellow corolla, diameter, maturing into an oval green or blue-green fruit about long, resembling a tiny but hairy cucumber.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ecballium elaterium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.