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Alsomitra macrocarpa
Javan cucumber (Alsomitra macrocarpa) is a climbing gourd vine from tropical forests of Southeast Asia and New Guinea, grown mainly as a botanical curiosity. It needs warm, humid, wet tropical conditions and a support to climb.
Alsomitra macrocarpa, commonly known as Javan cucumber, is a species of gourd-bearing liana belonging to the pumpkin family Cucurbitaceae. It is native to the tropical forests of Maritime Southeast Asia, as well as Thailand and New Guinea and its nearby islands.
The fruits or pepos are football-sized (about 300mm diameter) and bell-shaped, suspended high in the forest canopy, and are densely packed with large numbers of seeds. Remarkably the seeds have large, papery wings and when ripe they fall from the underside of the fruit and glide long distances.
The seed or samara of this species is unusual in having two flat bracts extending either side of the seed to form a wing-like shape with the seed embedded along one long edge and the wings angled slightly back from it. As the seed ripens the wings dry and the long edge furthest from the seed curls slightly upwards. When ripe, a hole forms in the bottom of the gourd, the seeds drop off, and their aerodynamic form allows them to glide away from the tree. The wing spans around 13 centimetres (5 in) and can glide for long distances. The seed moves through the air like a butterfly in flight — it gains height, stalls, dips and accelerates, once again producing lift, a process termed phugoid oscillation. In the past it was often found on the decks of ships at sea.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Alsomitra macrocarpa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
