Cucumis hystrix — Edible Plant Database

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit, Vegetable, Leaves

The fruits are eaten fresh as a vegetable and used in salads, while the leaves are boiled and eaten.

Where to Find It

It is a tropical plant. It grows in forests between 800-1,500 m above sea level. In Yunnan.

Asia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indochina, Laos, Myanmar, SE Asia, Thailand,

Countries: United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brunei, Bhutan, China, Georgia, Indonesia, Israel, India, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, North Korea, South Korea, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mongolia, Maldives, Malaysia, Nepal, Oman, Philippines, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Thailand, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen

How to Identify

A pumpkin family plant. It is a vine. The stems are angular. It has simple, narrow tendrils. The leaves are oval or triangle shaped and 6-13 cm long by 6-10 cm wide. They have 3-5 irregular lobes. There are teeth along the edge. Male and female flowers occur singly. They are yellow. The fruit are oblong and 4-5 cm long by 1-2 cm wide. The seeds are narrowly oval.

Wikipedia

Source ↗

Cucumis hystrix is a monoecious annual climbing vine in the family Cucurbitaceae. The specific epithet (hystrix) is Neo-Latin for "porcupine".

Other Information

It is sold in local markets.

Notes

There are about 25 Cucumis species.

Names & Synonyms

A yao shuo kuo, Dian song, Kanta shasha, Lu gua biu

References (6)

BARC, 2016, State of Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council.
Cao, Y., et al, 2020, Ethnobotanical study on wild edible plants used by three trans-boundary ethnic groups in Jiangcheng County, Pu’er, Southwest China. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2020) 16:66
Ghorbani, A., et al, 2012, A comparison of the wild food plant use knowledge of ethnic minorities in Naban River Watershed Nature Reserve, Yunnan, SW China. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine; 8:17
J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 50(4):896. 1952
Xu, You-Kai, et al, 2004, Wild Vegetable Resources and Market Survey in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China. Economic Botany. 58(4): 647-667.
Yang, Si-Lin and Walters, T. W., 1992, Ethnobotany and the Economic role of the Cucurbitaceae of China. Economic Botany, Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 349-367