The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Cucumis humifructus
Aardvark cucumber is a trailing vine from African savannas that fruits underground and depends on aardvarks to dig up and spread its seeds. It is grown mainly as a botanical curiosity rather than a garden crop.
Cucumis humifructus, the aardvark cucumber or aardvark pumpkin, is a species of cucumber (family Cucurbitaceae) from southern and tropical Africa which fruits underground. It is a prostrate vine up to 7 metres (23 ft) in length. It is reliant on the aardvark (Orycteropus afer) to eat the fruit in order to spread and re-bury its seeds. The species was described in 1927, with the name spelling "humofructus", but this is corrected to C. humifructus following the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.
It has a growing season of between three and four months, with its habitat being restricted to the savanna regions of tropical and southern Africa. It typically grows within the geographical range of aardvark burrows, as the animals tend to defecate near their lairs.
West Indian gherkin · Cucumis · Cucumis hystrix · Cantaloupe · Armenian cucumber · Melon · African horned cucumber · Gooseberry gourd · Cucumis · Cucumber · Melon
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cucumis humifructus 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.
