Squirting cucumber is a perennial plant with a large fleshy root which raises several round and thick stems, branching and trailing. The name “Ecballium elaterium” is derived from the Greek word “ekballein” which means to throw out and the ejection of the seeds from the fruit as it ripens.
It is a fragile vine having small greenish to yellow flowers found in sandy roadsides, marshes and low woods. The stems forms several from same root and cylindrical, without tendrils and prostate. Leaves are alternate, heartshaped. The plant flowers in July. Blooms are symmetrical and bisexual. Male flowers in clusters having bell shaped and yellow green veined corollas. Females are monoecious and solitary followed by a small fruit which is elliptical greenish gourd covered with soft triangular prickles. The seeds are black, reticulated and compressed.
