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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
  • 2 new FloraQuest apps: Florida & Mid-South vote
  • Image overlays highlighting diagnostic characters with arrows vote
  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
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Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Cucumis

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1 Fruits with spine-bearing tubercles (aculeae); [West Indian gherkin]; [subgenus Cucumis; section Aculeatosi].
  2 Plants monoecious; pedicels of pistillate flowers cylindrical (isodiametric through their length); staminate inflorescences of (1-) 2-5 flowers in a sessile fascicle
  2 Plants dioecious; pedicels of pistillate flowers and fruits flaring upwards; staminate inflorescences 3-10 in a pedunculate or sessile raceme.
    3 Spine-bearing tubercles 1-2 mm long; leaves deeply 3-5-palmately lobed
    3 Spine-bearing tubercles 4-10 (-15) mm long; leaves slightly to deeply 3-5-palmately lobed
1 Fruits smooth, reticulate, or hairy, lacking aculeae; [subgenus Cucumis; section Cucumis].
      4 Leaf blade central lobe broadly triangular; corolla tube of female flower 3.5-6.5 mm long; corolla tube of male flower 3.4-4.9 mm long; [cucumber]
      4 Leaf blade central lobe elliptic, oblong or ovate; corolla tube of female 0.8-2.8 mm long; corolla tube of male flower 0.8-2.0 mm long.
        5 Fused portion of hypanthium or youngest fruits with appressed hairs; stem abundantly beset with retrorse prickles; fruit diameter 2.5-5 cm
        5 Fused portion of hypanthium or youngest fruits with spreading hairs; stems smooth or nearly so; fruit diameter > 10 cm.
          6 Fruits with netted, warty, or scaly rind; ripe fruits with orange (rarely green) flesh, with aromatic flavor and musky odor; [cantaloupes, muskmelons, etc.]
          6 Fruits with smooth or wrinkled rind; ripe fruits with white or green flesh, lacking musky odor; [honeydews, etc.]