Crossword clues for cucurbitaceae
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cucurbitaceae \Cucurbitaceae\ n. a natural family of plants including the cucumber; melon; squash; and pumpkin.
Syn: family Cucurbitaceae, gourd family.
Wikipedia
The Cucurbitaceae, also called cucurbits and the gourd family, are a plant family consisting of ca 965 species in around 95 genera, the most important of which are:
- Cucurbita – squash, pumpkin, zucchini, some gourds
- Lagenaria – mostly inedible gourds
- Citrullus – watermelon (C. lanatus, C. colocynthis) and others
- Cucumis – cucumber (C. sativus), various melons
- Luffa – the common name is also luffa, sometimes spelled loofah (when fully ripened, two species of this fibrous fruit are the source of the loofah scrubbing sponge)
The plants in this family are grown around the tropics and in temperate areas, where those with edible fruits were among the earliest cultivated plants both in the Old and New Worlds. The Cucurbitaceae family ranks among the highest of plant families for number and percentage of species used as human food.
The Cucurbitaceae consist of 98 proposed genera with 975 species, mainly in regions tropical and subtropical. All species are sensitive to frost. Most of the plants in this family are annual vines, but some are woody lianas, thorny shrubs, or trees ( Dendrosicyos). Many species have large, yellow or white flowers. The stems are hairy and pentangular. Tendrils are present at 90° to the leaf petioles at nodes. Leaves are exstipulate alternate simple palmately lobed or palmately compound. The flowers are unisexual, with male and female flowers on different plants (dioecious) or on the same plant (monoecious). The female flowers have inferior ovaries. The fruit is often a kind of modified berry called a pepo.
Usage examples of "cucurbitaceae".
Vitaceae, Cucurbitaceae, and Bignoniaceae, in which slight pressure causes a cellular outgrowth.
Cruciferae, Cucurbitaceae, Githago, and Beta, never last even for a week, to any conspicuous degree.
Leguminosae, Malvaceae, Cucurbitaceae and Gramineae, we may infer that this character is common to the roots of most seedling plants.
But with most of the Cucurbitaceae there is a curious special contrivance for bursting the seedcoats whilst beneath the ground, namely, a peg at the base of the hypocotyl, projecting at right angles, which holds down the lower half of the seedcoats, whilst the growth of the arched part of the hypocotyl lifts up the upper half, and thus splits them in twain.