COMPARING VIRGIN'S BOWER AND WILD CUCUMBER VINES: PART II

WILD CUCUMBER VINES RAMBLING OVER TREES AND SHRUBS

FLOWERS AND LEAVES OF WILD CUCUMBER

WILD CUCUMBER FRUIT

 Friday, 8:00 AM.  37 degrees F at the ferry dock, 33 on the back porch.  Wind WNW, mostly calm with occasional moderate gusts.  The sky is drearily overcast and cloudy, the humidity 76%.  The barometer is falling, now at 29.81", predicting rain and snow by mid afternoon.  The high today will be in the mid-30's,  with temperatures falling to the low 30's for the weekend, with mixed skies.
   We are traveling to Milwaukee to attend a memorial tomorrow for Andy Larsen, a noted Wisconsin naturalist and good friend.  We were prepared for bad road conditions, but it appears as though we may dodge the bullet, but there will no further posts until Monday.
   Today is my birthday, I hope there will be no cake with candles as there would be too many for me to blow out without a fire extinguisher.  It wasn't so many years ago that I was middle aged, then  "young old," then the merely "old. " I am now, I fear,  among the "old, old."
   Virgin's bower and wild cucumber are both native American vines that are quite prevalent and can easily be confused from a distance.  The former was discussed in yesterday's post and the comparison continues today.
   Wild cucumber vines ramble over trees and shrubs in wet spots, making many woods edges look like they have a bad haircut.  The vines are pretty in an unkempt way, and are sometimes planted to climb on arbors, but I wouldn't want them to eat my house.
  Wild cucumber, Echinocystis lobata, in the Gourd Family, the Cucurbitaceae, is common throughout much of southern Canada and the lower 48 states of the US. The Latin genus name refers to the prickly fruit, and the species name to the distinctly lobed leaves. Since wild cucumber  has at times been used as an ornamental vine, it is also escaped from cultivation.  It is an annual and climbs by tendrils like the garden cucumber, but is not related to it.
   Each "cucumber" or "balsam apple" bears four seeds, which reportedly were used to make beads by American Indians, and who also used the plant as an analgesic and a love potion.