Hedgehog Cucumber SEEDS (Echinocystis lobata) Annual VINE

This cucumber from eastern Africa grows long, thin shoots with large leaves and small, yellow flowers, followed by very pretty yellow fruits that are covered in hundreds of thin, soft spines. Not edible but very ornamental and great for decoration.

Hedgehog Cucumber is a herbaceous annual vine, creeping or climbing by tendrils, which attains 1.5 m in length. Stems are much branched, slender, angular, grooved, bristly on the angular margins; tendrils simple, longer than the leaves. Leaves are alternate; blades 2.5-7.5 x 2-7 cm, ovate or trilobed, the lobes blunt, the base heart-shaped, the tip blunt, the margins toothed or entire; upper surface dull, rough; lower surface pale green, dull, rough, with prominent venation and bristlyulous; leaf-stalks grooved, bristlyulous or bristly, 1.5-5 cm long. Flowers are solitary, male flowers sometimes in fascicles in leaf-axils; calyx bell-shaped, 3.6-5.2 mm long, bristlyulous, sepals narrowly oblong or linear, 1.6-4 mm long, bristlyulous. Flowers are pale yellow, bell-shaped, bristlyulous outside, the tube 1-1.5 mm long, the lobes obovate, pointed, 5.5-8.5 mm long. Fruit is ellipsoid or spherical, densely covered with spines about 1 cm long, 3-6.5 cm long, pale yellow; seeds numerous, elliptical, cream-colored, 4-5 mm long. is found in Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Southern Egypt) and India (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala). Flowering: November-February.
Medicinal uses:  Leaves and roots are pounded and used as a poultice to treat wounds. The juice from the fruits is used as an antidote for poisoning, but it has to be supplemented by drinking fresh milk.