I am choosing to blog today about Burr Cucumber. It seemed to be appropriate that I should blog about an early-successional plant that does well in disturbed environments, and that seems to appear out of nowhere, rush through its plant-life and disappear just a quickly, unable to survive any serious competition or bad weather.
Burr Cucumber is in the genus, Sicyos . How is that pronounced? I wanted to say it "sick", but upon going to this site: I found that the c sounds like an "s". At the end of the summer, burr cucumber suddenly appeared on our back porch, and in what seemed like just a matter of days, it was lush and big and taking over. While the plant grew very well, at the first bit of frost, it appears to have died. (In contrast, our garden pepper plants are still hanging in there!) The burr cucumber seems to have more speed than stamina and endurance. The genus belongs in the Cucurbitaceae or Gourd family. Like some other members of this family it has hairy stems, palmate leaves, and a propensity to climb. Although the burr cucumbers are not edible, its relatives, the pumpkins and squashes (both Cucurbita pepo)and cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) are edible.
I haven't keyed out the plant in my backyard, but I suspect that the species growing there is Sicyos angulatus - which is a native weed, and some sites regard it as invasive to fields of nonnative crops.
This weed reminds me of several topics that I emphasize in my classes. I bring up climbing plants when I talk about convergent evolution. Tendrils are one of many homoplastic climbing traits that plants have evolved repeatedly to solve the same problem: the need to raise the photosynthetic leaves above the nearby competition. This plant also displays traits that are advantageous in an early-successional environement: grow fast and put most of your energy into growth and reproduction and none into storage; this plant is an annual. It has not saved any resources to survive the winter; it has reproduced and died.
My life seems to be favoring the "do things quickly"strategy - or at least I feel a pressure to focus more on short-term results than long-term solutions. And on that note, I redirect my attention away from the pleasant long term goal of learning more about plants, and return my attention to getting a cup of coffee so that I can work faster, burn out sooner, and meet those immediate deadlines of my often disturbed daily routine.
Pictures of Sicyos on my back porch:
