Echinocystis

Echinocystis is a monotypic genus in the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. The sole species is E. lobata, commonly called wild cucumber and prickly cucumber. It is an annual, sprawling plant that is native to North America. Sicyos angulatus, common name "bur cucumber", is an annual plant with a similar clinging vine growth but different-appearing flowers and seed pods.

==Description== Echinocystis lobata is an annual vine that produces stems that can be as long as and which climb, with the help of coiling, branched tendrils, over shrubs and fences or trail across the ground. The stems are angular and furrowed. The leaves are alternate with long petioles, five palmate lobes and no stipules. The plants are monoecious, with separate male and female blooms on the same plant. The male flowers are in long-stemmed, upright panicles. Each flower has a white, or greenish-yellow, corolla with six slender lobes. The male flower has a single central stamen with a yellow anther. The female flower has a single stigma and is borne on a short stalk at the base of the flower panicle, with the spiky globular inferior ovary being immediately beneath. The fruit is a prickly, inflated capsule up to long with two pores and four seeds. It resembles a tiny spiny water melon, or cucumber, but is inedible. It persists all winter and then opens at the bottom, liberating the seeds.