SYNONYMY:
Bryoniaceae Adans., Fam. Pl. 2: 135. 1763.
Cyclantheraceae Lilja, Skaneskfl., ed. 2: 716, 980. 1870.
Fevilleaceae Pfeiff.
Nandhirobeae (Nandhirobaceae) A. St-Hil.
Nhandirobaceae T. Lestib., Botanogr. Elém.: 515. 1826.
Zanoniaceae Dumort., Anal. Fam. Pl.: 28, 29. 1829.
DESCRIPTION:
Plants almost always either herbaceous annual or perennial by means of a storage root, often succulent (sometimes softly woody), vines (rarely shrub or tree, e.g. Acanthosicyos and Dendrosicyos), prostrate or climbing by means of tendrils, coarse and often scabrous with trichomes containing phytoliths, stems typically 5-angled, characterized anatomically by bicollateral vascular bundles often arranged in 2 concentric rings.
Tendrils either branched or simple (rarely absent or reduced to spines, e.g. Ecballium elaterium, Cucumis rigidus, and Acanthosicyos horridus), arising at the side of each petiole base, coiling or with adhesive tips.
Leaves alternate, exstipulate, simple or occasionally ternate or palmately compund, palmately veined and usually lobed, sometimes pinnatifid (e.g. Citrullus) (absent in Seyrigia), later developing leaves tend to be more deeply lobed, extra-floral nectaries often present.
Flowers unisexual, e.g. the plants are monoecious or dioecious, rarely hermaphrodite; inflorescence determinate, cymose or solitary, the latter more commonly in the female flower, axillary, small to large, with a shallow to tubular hypanthium; calyx synsepalous with five lobes; corolla sympetalous with usually five lobes, sometimes petals free, arising from the hypanthium, actinomorphic or slightly zygomorphic, campanulate, rotate, to salverform, often showy but ephemeral, orange-yellow, yellow to white or greenish, less commonly pink, purple, or red; androecium consisting of 1–5 stamens (usually 3, composed of two double stamens and one single stamen), variously united, the anthers variously bent to convoluted, dehiscing longitudinally (key characters of genera often are based upon the morphology of the androecium); gynoecium consisting of an inferior ovary, carpels usually 3 (1 in the tribe Sicyeae), united, parietal placentation or the placentae often meeting in the center and appearing axillary, usually unilocular, or 2–5 locular (by joining of the usually intruded parietal placentae), locules may be secondarily divided by ‘false septa’, the style usually single with 1–5 (usually 3) stigmas, or three styles, staminodes often present.
Fruit fleshy or dry, indehiscent to variously dehiscent at maturity, pendulous or erect, often large (Cucurbita maxima has the largest fruit in the plant kningdom), containing several to hundreds of seeds, although sometimes one-seeded (e.g. Sechium), exocarp soft leathery to hard and lignified with phytoliths, fruit types range from a gourd-like berry or pepo (pepo is a berry with a firm-walled epicarp or rind, e.g. Citrullus lanatus) to capsular fruit that are sometimes explosively dehiscent (e.g. Cyclanthera, Ecballium, and Schizopepon), some indehiscent fruit are adapted to dispersal by floating in rivers and ocean currents, frequently containing bitter purgative cucurbitacins (tetracyclic triterpenoids, bitter-tasting substances) as well as in the leaves and roots.
Seeds sometimes winged (most notably in Alsomitra, which inspired the wing design of early aircraft) or variously ornamented or colored, often make good key characters between closely related species, some contain edible and/or medicinal seedoil, endosperm absent.
Ecology: either mesophytic or xerophytic, primarily tropical or subtropical in roughly equal distribution in both eastern and western hemispheres, frost sensitive, annual or perennial, the latter often persisting by means of tuberous storage roots (species of Bryonia occur in northern Europe, sprouting rapidly from perennial roots), pollinators are typically bees and moths (somtimes hummingbirds and bats) that are attracted to the rich nectar supply and pollen and are guided by the UV-reflective petals, pollen-gathering insects may be fooled into visiting the female flowers which have a gynoecium that mimics the structure of the androecium in the male flowers.
There are two subfamilies in the family:
Zanonioideae C. Jeffrey, Kew Bulletin 15(3): 345. 1962.
DESCRIPTION: Styles 2–3, free; tendrils bifid, spiralling below and above the point of branching, the bifurcation distal and the branches short; filaments inserted on or about the disk; pollen grains small, tricolporate, striate; seeds usually winged.
1 tribe, 18 genera, about 80 species
Tropics
Cucurbitoideae Endl., Genera Plantarum 1: 935. 1839
DESCRIPTION: Styles united into a single column; tendrils usually unbranched or 2–7-fid, spiralling only above the point of branching, the latter proximal and the branches long, very rarely of zanonioid type; filaments inserted on the hypanthium, free from the disk when the latter present; pollen grains various, not striate; seeds not winged.
7 tribes, 100 genera, about 745 species
Tropics
LITERATURE: Jeffrey, C. 2005. Systema Cucurbitacearum Nova. Botanicheskii Zhurnal 90:?
Jeffrey, C. 1990. Appendix: an outline classification of the Cucurbitaceae. Pages 449–463 in Bates, D. M., R. W. Robinson, & C. Jeffrey, eds. Biology and Utilization of the Cucurbitaceae. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univ. Press.
The Cucurbit Network News.
INTERNET: W3TROPICOS: Missouri Botanical Garden’s VAST (VAScular Tropicos) nomenclatural database
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI)