Cucumis queenslandicus I.Telford

Telford, I.R.H., Sebastian, P., Bruhl, J.J. & Renner, S.S. (2011) Systematic Botany 36(2): 382, Type: Australia. Queensland: Cook District: 5 km SE of Chillagoe, beside Burke Development Road, 18 Apr. 2006, Wannan & Beasley 4266.

A slender trailing or climbing perennial herb, most parts hispid; stems ribbed, to 70 cm long. Tendrils simple unbranched, +/- leaf-opposed, to 6 cm long.

Leaf blades triangular to broadly ovate in outline, shollowly to deeply 3-5-lobed, cordate, about 0.9-4.4 x 1-4.2 cm, petioles 1.4-4 cm long. Both the upper and lower leaf blade surfaces clothed in hairs.

Inflorescences unisexual. Male flowers: borne in fascicles or racemes of 2-5 flowers; calyx tube (hypanthium) about 2.8-4.2 mm long, lobes linear 0.8-1.3 mm long; corolla lobes obovate, 3.4-4.2 mm long; stamens 3, two stamens with 2-locular anthers and one stamen with a unilocular anther; stamens inserted about middle of hypanthium tube. Female flowers: solitary; peduncle 5-18 mm, scarcely elongating in fruit; staminodes absent; ovary ca. 5.5 mm long, densely hispid with retrorse hairs; base of the style surrounded by an annular disk.

Fruits ovoid and tapering at each end, about 15-23 mm long, slightly 10-ribbed, hairy; pedicels hairy, about 7-16 mm long; seeds about 10-20 per fruit, each seed 4.5-5 x 3.8-4.2 mm, faces convex, pitted, margin narrow.

Features not available.

Occurs in NEQ, known from near Chillagoe to Undara and south to the Copperfield River. Grows in eucalypt woodland and deciduous vine thickets on granite hills.

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