Wild Cucumber

A vine with branching tendrils and fairly large toothed leaves with 3 to 7 (generally 5) lobes that can exceed 15 feet in length. White to greenish-white flowers (about 0.5 inches wide) with 6 petals arranged in relatively long branching clusters; each cluster consists mainly of staminate (male) flowers with one to a few pistillate (female) flowers at the base near the leaf axil. Fruit, about 1.5 to 2 inches long, a green, inedible gourd-like structure with many spines.

Photographed at Seeley's Bay, Ontario - August 2003