Echinopepon wrightii

Wiggins 1964

Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Vine General: Coarse annual vine with lobate leaves and large, long-spined fruits; stems coarsely ribbed, tendrils strongly ribbed, pubescent. Leaves: Orbicular, deeply and broadly notched at base, dentate, undulate, 3-5 lobed, acute lobes, mucronate, blade 5-8 cm wide, finely hispid on both surfaces. Flowers: Staminate flowers in simple or compound racemes; pubescent calyx, corolla 6-8 mm wide, rotate. Fruits: Obovate, tapering to base, 2-2.5 cm long, stipitate-glandular, 4-8 seeded, prickles 1-2 cm long. Ecology: Found on alluvial plains and on gentle slopes, along streams and climbing on shrubs; 3,000-4,000 ft (914-1219 m); flowers July-October.  Distribution: se AZ, sw NM, TX; south to c MEX and in C. Amer. Notes: A vine with ovate or pointed-lobed leaves and white flowers; the fruits are quite distinctive with large prickles. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Echinopepon comes from the Greek echinos for hedgehog or spine and pepon derives form pepo, while wrightii is named for Charles Wright (1811-1885), an American botanical collector. Synonyms: Elaterium wrightii Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015