Melothria

Melothria
	Melothria scabra
Systematics
	Nuclear eudicotyledons
	Rosids
	Eurosiden I
Order :	Pumpkin-like (Cucurbitales)
Family :	Pumpkin family (Cucurbitaceae)
Genre :	Melothria
Scientific name
	Melothria
	L.

Melothria is a genus of plants within the pumpkin family (Cucurbitaceae), which is native to the tropics of the New World .

features

The representatives are small annual climbing plants . They are mono-ee . A cover sheet is not formed, the tendrils are simple and bare. The leaves are simple, whole or lobed, the veins are palmate.

The flowers are small and yellow with a diameter of five to rarely eight millimeters. The sepals are very small and narrow. The petals are free, oval-elliptical and valvat in the bud . The flower tube is bell-shaped.

The male inflorescences are slender stalked clusters with closely spaced flowers. A female flower usually arises at the same node as the male inflorescence. Bracts are missing. The male flower has a slender stem that is around five millimeters long and does not fall off. The three stamens set about a third below the throat of the flower tube. The stamens are shorter than the anthers , slender and set dorsifix near the tip of the anthers. Of the anthers, two are bithek, one is unithek. The disc in the male flower is almost spherical.

Fruit of Melothria scabra

The female flowers stand alone or together with a male grape in the leaf axils. A single female flower is rarely found in an otherwise male flower cluster. The flower stalk is long. The ovary is narrow-ovate, with a slender neck and bare. The scar consists of three erect, fleshy, papillary scars. The staminodes are very small. The discus is ring-shaped. Numerous fruits ( berries ) are formed per plant, which stand on a long, slender fruit stalk, are narrow-ellipsoidal in shape and one to 1.5 centimeters long. The fruits, which are reminiscent of small watermelons, have an intense taste of cucumber with a slightly sour aftertaste. The numerous seeds are flat and oval-elliptical.

distribution

The genus is native to tropical Central and South America. Melothria pendula was naturalized in Asia and is considered a weed there.

Systematics

The genus Melothria was established by Carl von Linné .

The genus is placed within the cucurbit family in the subfamily Cucurbitoideae, Tribus Benincaseae, Subtribus Cucumerinae. It is the sister taxon of the genus Posadaea . Together with Melancium , they form the most basal clade within the tribe of Benincaseae.

There are about twelve types. Charles Jeffrey mentions only the following species in 1978:

Melothria anatuyana Mart. Crov. : It is put by some authors as Apodanthera anatuyana (Mart. Crov.) Pozner to the genus Apodanthera .
Melothria candolleana cogn.
Melothria cucumis Veil.
Melothria dulcis Wunderlin : It occurs in Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.
Melothria domingensis Cogn.
Melothria longituba C. Jeffrey
Melothria pendula L .: It is native to the United States, Mexico, Central America, the islands of the Caribbean and South America.
Melothria pringlei (S.Wats.) Mart. Crov.
Melothria scabra Naudin (= Melothria costensis C. Jeffrey at Jeffrey )
Melothria schulziana Mart. Crov.
Melothria trilobata Cogn. : It occurs in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Venezuela and in Brazil.
Melothria warmingii Cogn.

literature

WJJO de Wilde, BEE Duyfjes: Redefinition of Zehneria and four new related genera (Cucurbitaceae), with an enumeration of the Australasian and Pacific species . Blumea, Volume 51, 2006, pp. 1-88.

Individual evidence

^ Melothria at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, accessed January 19, 2017.
↑ Alexander Kocyan, Li-Bing Zhang, Hanno Schaefer, Susanne S. Renner: A multi-locus chloroplast phylogeny for the Cucurbitaceae and its implications for character evolution and classification . Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 44, August 2007, pp. 553-577. doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2006.12.022
↑ ^a ^b Melothria at Tropicos.org. In: Flora de Nicaragua . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
^ Charles Jeffrey : Further Notes on Cucurbitaceae: IV: Some New-World Taxa. Kew Bulletin, Vol. 33, 1978, pp. 347-380.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Melothria in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
^ Flora of Nicaragua , accessed April 4, 2008.

Web links

Commons : Melothria - collection of images, videos and audio files

[Tropicos-1] Melothria at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, accessed January 19, 2017.

[2] Alexander Kocyan, Li-Bing Zhang, Hanno Schaefer, Susanne S. Renner: A multi-locus chloroplast phylogeny for the Cucurbitaceae and its implications for character evolution and classification . Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 44, August 2007, pp. 553-577. doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2006.12.022

[FdeNicaragua-3] Melothria at Tropicos.org. In: Flora de Nicaragua . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis

[4] Charles Jeffrey : Further Notes on Cucurbitaceae: IV: Some New-World Taxa. Kew Bulletin, Vol. 33, 1978, pp. 347-380.

[GRIN-5] Melothria in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. Retrieved January 19, 2017.

[Nic-6] Flora of Nicaragua , accessed April 4, 2008.