Ontario Weeds: Bur cucumber
Table of Contents
- Name
- Other Names
- Family
- General Description
- Photos and Pictures
- Stems and Roots
- Flowers and Fruit
- Habitat
- Similar Species
- Related Links
Name: Bur-cucumber, Sicyos angulatus
L.,
Other Names: sicyos anguieux, Bur cucumber,
figue sauvage
Family: Gourd or Melon Family (Cucurbitaceae)
General Description: Annual, reproducing
only by seed.
Photos and Pictures
Bur cucumber. Portion of viny stem with separate
clusters of male and female flowers and spiny fruits.
Stems & Roots: Creeping or climbing;
stems sometimes several metres (several yards) long, hairy, with branched
tendrils opposite each leaf; leaves broad with 3 to 5 pointed angles
or shallow lobes and deeply heartshaped at the petiole end; margins
with widely spaced, very shallow teeth; petioles attached in the narrow
space between the lobes of the heart-shaped leaf base;
Flowers & Fruit: Flowers of two
kinds: male, pollen-producing flowers in open-branched clusters on
long stalks, their corolla white or greenish and 5-lobed; female,
seed-producing flowers in small, head-like clusters on shorter stalks;
individual fruits ovoid, up to 23mm (7/8in.) long and 10mm (2/5in.)
wide, not inflated and not succulent, covered with fine cobwebby hair
and several to many, long (4mm, 1/6in.), slender, yellow, hard, sharp,
barbed spines; 3 to 10 fruits usually clustered together in a spiny
bur. Flowers from July to September.
Habitat: Bur-cucumber occurs in damp
soil along river banks and in yards and fields in southern Ontario,
sometimes almost completely covering the plants with which it is growing.
Similar Species: It is distinguished by
its vine habit with branched tendrils opposite each leaf, the narrow
space between the lobes of the heart-shaped leaf base, and its non-inflated,
sharply spiny fruits borne in clusters of 3 to 10 together.
Related Links
... on general Weed
topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA
Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA
Publication 75: Guide To Weed Control
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