2 CaCtus and suCCulent Journal

The cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae), with some 900 mostly tropical spe-cies, is a family of mostly climbing or trailing, usually perennial her-baceous plants with a worldwide distribution in tropical and to a lesser extent in subtropi-cal and temperate areas of the world1. A number of species are of great economic value as food plantspumpkins and other squashes, melons and cucumbersand others are used as medicine. But for the grower of succulent plants, the most interesting species are those from arid and semiarid regions that develop a caudex. Tropi-cal Africa and Madagascar are particularly rich in spe-cies of interest to collectors (Cephalopentandra, Coccinia, Corallocarpus, Cyclantherop-sis, Gerrardanthus, Kedros-tis, Momordica, Odosicy-os, Trochomeriopsis, Xerosi-cyos, and Zygosicyos), and in North America the most well known caudiciform species belong to Ibervil-lea and Marah. But little is known of the South Ameri-can caudiciform Cucurbita-ceae, of which Apodanthera is a representative.

Apodanthera was described in 1841 and was last revised

in 19162. Recent accounts cite between 15 and 25 species3,4, the majority in Brazil, though the best-known is Apodanthera undulata of United States Southwest and Mexico, where it is known as Coy-ote Melon or Meln Loco. It develops an under-ground caudex up to one meter in diameter.

Marlon C MaChadoSpecial Issue: Eastern Brazil

ApodantheraCaudiciform cucumbers of Bahia, Brazil

animals have grazed on the vines of an Apodanthera congestiflora specimen growing in the open, causing the plant branch just above the caudex. It looks like a miniature bottle tree, an effect that is readily achieved in cultiva-tion. The neighboring shrub with peeling bark is Jatropha mutabilis.

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There are eight species of Apodanthera in the state of Bahia, Brazil. Some develop an aboveg-round caudex up to six inches (15 cm) in diame-ter, and as the bases of the vines are not decidu-ous, with time they thicken to become one inch (2.5 cm) or more in diameter.

We found Apodanthera congestiflora and A. vil-losa in flower and fruit in the central Bahia town of Morro do Chapu. The two grew together at a site about 22 km to the west of Morro do Chapu (where A. villosa is endemic), and a large popula-tion of A. congestiflora was found 16 km southwest

of the village Olhos Dgua do Fagundes towards the cave Gruta dos Brejes. Both species grow in sandy soil, sometimes out in the open but usual-ly at the base of spiny shrubs, which afford some protection to the caudex. The vines climb the sur-rounding shrubbery in order to reach the sun, and when without leaves are rather inconspicuous.

These two species are similar when out of flow-er and fruit: both have trifoliolate leaves (divided

in three leaflets) that are pubescent on both faces, and each has a rounded to oblong aboveground caudex about two to four inches (510 cm) in diameter with brown to dark gray bark. But with careful observation they can still be distinguished. A. villosa has vines whose epidermis is glabrous (meaning without hairs), glaucous, and often bright orange when exposed to the sun, whereas vines of A. congestiflora have a finely pubescent (hairy) epi-dermis, green but soon developing a brown bark. While these characteristics are useful to distin-guish the two species at Morro do Chapu, they

are not unique, and related species share some the same characteristics. The best way to posi-tively identify the species is to observe their flow-ers and fruits.

Both A. congestiflora and A. villosa are dioe-cious: an individual has either male or female flowers only. The flowers are born in dense clus-ters in the axils of the leaves (in fact A. congesti-flora was named because of this characteristic: con-

I Fruit clusters of Apodanthera congestiflora can contain a few dozen fruitsa pleasing coffee color with linear dots and markings of latte foam; some young flowers are still visible. L Apodanthera villosa. a cluster of male flowers (left); female flowers (center), some already pollinated and developing into young fruits; and a cluster of young fruits (right), which turn orange when ripe. observe the long white hairs in the flower tubes, noted in the species name. Vines are bright orange.

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gest = dense, flora = flowers). But other than this, the flowers and fruits of these species are quite distinct: A. villosa has dense long hairs in the flower tube (villosa = hairy), while A. congestiflo-ra has a naked flower tube. The fruits of A. vil-losa are ovoid, spindle-shaped (beaked) at the apex, rounded at the base, at first green and rip-ening orange. A. congestiflora fruits are ellipsoid to cylindrical, rounded at both ends, and coffee-colored with whitish streaks and dots in longi-tudinal rows.

The fruits of both species have just a few seeds in them, but many fruits are produced in a clus-ter. Seeds collected in August and sowed in Octo-ber 2008 germinated fast, and seedlings soon developed a caudex derived from swelling of the hypocotyl (that part of the seedling between the root and the cotyledons or first leaves). The lit-tle caudices were almost an inch wide in just three

months. A couple of collected specimens proved to be very adaptable to pot culture, quickly root-ing and producing lots of new vines; they are not rot-prone and can take frequent watering when in growth. If left dry for an extended period the plants drop their thinner vines and leaves and become dormant, awakening quickly when water-ing is resumed. Although these Apodanthera spe-cies from Bahia do not develop large caudices, the caudex has an interesting bark which is often len-ticellate (textured with small warts), and because the vine bases are persistent, the vines can be pinched back to keep them in check and also to make them branch so that a nice canopy can form above the caudex. Hence, the plants can be trained as a miniature bottle-shaped tree, ideal for bon-sai display.

RefeRences1 Newton LE. 2002. Cucurbitaceae. In Eggli U (editor). Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Dicotyledons. Spring-Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 2 Cogniaux A. 1916. Cucurbitaceae: Fevilleae et Melothrieae. In Engler A (editor), Das Pflanzenreich IV. 275. I. (Heft 66). W Engelmann, Leipzig, Germany. 3 Jeffrey C. 1992. The genus Apodanthera (Cucurbitaceae) in Bahia State (Brazil). Kew Bulletin 47(3): 517528. 4 The International Plant Names Index 2008. Published on the Internet http://www.ipni.org/ [accessed 26 December 2008].

Apodanthera villosa caudices can be found growing under shrubs (left). We found some in leaf (right).

ApodAntherA speCIes oF BahIaA. congestiflora, A. fasciculata, A. glaziovii, A. hatsch-bachii, A. hindii, A. succulenta, A. trifoliata, and A. villosa