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Mysore Cucamelon
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Mysore Cucamelon
P Native Photo: S. Kasim
Common name: Mysore Cucamelon • Chinese: 钮子瓜 Niu zi gua • Malayalam: Aliyanchappu, Katusoppu
Botanical name: Zehneria maysorensis    Family: Cucurbitaceae (Pumpkin family)
Synonyms: Melothria maysorensis, Bryonia maysorensis, Zehneria lucida

Mysore cucamelon is a herbaceous climbers with stem slender, hairless. Leaves are alternate, 7-8 x 6.5-8 cm, broadly ovate, heart-shaped at base, pointed-tapering at tip, shallowly 3-angled, sawtoothed along margins, minutely and densely punctuate above, hairless to minutely papillate beneath; nerves usually sparsely bristly beneath; leaf-stalk 2-3 cm long; tendrils simple. Flowers are cream-yellow. Male flowers are borne in umbels, carried on flower-cluster-stalks 2-4 cm long. Flower-stalks about 2 mm long. Petals are ovate, pointed at tip, about 2.5 mm long. Stamens 3; filaments about 3 mm long; anthers about 1 by 1.25 mm, papillose. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped, about 3 mm long, hairless outside, hairy inside; sepals minute, teeth-like. Female flowers are borne singly in leaf-axils, on flower-stalks about 2 mm long. Sepal-cup is oblong, about 6 x 2 mm. Style is about 3.5 mm long; stigma spreading. Staminodes are 3, thread-like, about 3 mm long, hairy. Fruits are oblong, about 1.7 x 1.1 cm, finely netveined rugose. Mysore cucamelon is found in Western Ghats, East Himalaya to Indo-China. Flowering: October-December.
Medicinal uses: Leaves are edible. Leaves are mixed with honey to kill stomach worms. Fruits are used as a blood purifier.

Identification credit: S. Kasim Photographed in Vagamon, Kerala.

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