Trichosanthes cucumerina Linnaeus var. anguina (Linnaeus) Haines.

Plants annual. Stems slender, branched, angular, puberulent. Petiole 3-7 cm; leaf blade suborbicular or orbicular-reniform, 8-16 × 6-18 cm, membranous, ± deeply 5(rarely 3-7)-lobed; lobes usually obovate, abaxially densely puberulent, adaxially subglabrous, margin finely denticulate. Plant monoecious. Male raceme usually 8-15-flowered; peduncle 10-18 cm, puberulent; pedicel erect, 5-12 cm, minutely spreading bracteate, bracts 3(-5) mm; calyx tube subcylindric, slightly dilated at apex, 2.5-3 × 4-5 mm, puberulent; segments reflexed, ca. 2 mm. Female flowers solitary; peduncle up to 1 cm; ovary narrowly fusiform, ± villous. Fruit very long, cylindric, 100-200 × 3-4 cm, smooth, sometimes contorted. Seed oblong, 11-17 × 8-10 mm, finely rugulose, margin undulate. Fl. and fr. summer-autumn.

The fruit is eaten as vegetable. The roots and seeds are used medicinally for treating diarrhea.

One of us (Jeffrey) treats this taxon as Trichosanthes cucumerina var. anguina.

Cultivated in China [cultivated throughout the tropics].