A “Weed” to Watch Out For

By Mary Beth McCaughey, President, FBMG S2000

 

I adhere to the philosophy that a weed is simply a plant growing where you don’t want it, and normally I don’t worry too much about weeds in my yard. Nut Grass is a fact of life in the flower beds, Bermuda Grass happens and I try to keep my turf reasonably healthy—well, healthy enough to control most of the weeds that are inherent to turf anyway.

 

Last year though, I noticed a new vine that had found its way into the landscape beds near my very large Mutabilis Rose. It was sort of delicate looking and I wondered what it was without worrying too much about it. After all, the birds plant a lot of things in my yard that don’t seem to cause problems. Then I noticed the small elongated-oval shaped fruit but still didn’t consider it a problem. Boy, did I live to regret that.

 

By September this vine had wound its way throughout my roses and when I broke open one of the fruits I saw LOTS of seeds. Wising up, I tried to pull the vine out, and just my luck, the small fruit simply popped off as I tried to unwind the thing from amongst the roses. Though I tried to collect as many of the fruits as possible, I knew I was going to have my hands full eradicating this thing from my landscape bed. I deliberately cleared out some extra space in the rose bed this spring and I’ve been pulling lots of these seedlings—catching them before they bear fruit this time! Since I learned this lesson the hard way, I wanted to offer some information that might help others.

 

Creeping Cucumber (Melothria pendula), also known as Guadeloupe Cucumber, is a vine that resembles a miniature squash or cucumber plant. Its leaves have 5 lobes and are somewhat heart shaped, with pointed tips. The largest leaves run about 2” long. Like squash, this plant has curly-cue tendrils to help grasp onto other plants for support. The leaf surfaces are like very fine Velcro and sticky to the touch. The flowers are small (approximately 1/4”) and the tiny watermelon like fruit grow to about 1/2”. The fruit is edible and can be used as a laxative, but it is considered mildly toxic.

 

This plant is commonly found in wetland areas but has been observed in disturbed areas such as roadsides and fields.

 

 

Photo by Daniel Reed.

Sources:

http://plants.usda.gov,

http://www.biol.andrews.edu and

http://2bnthewild.com