Apodanthera undulata A. Gray
Family: Cucurbitaceae
melon loco,  more...
Apodanthera undulata image
Wiggins 1964, Kearney and Peebles 1969

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Coarse perennial vine with gray to green foliage, stems thick, multistriate, hispid and sparsely muriculate, tendrils short-petiolate, mostly bifid, short, sparsely pilose.

Leaves: Blades 6-9 cm long, 7-10 cm wide, reinform, entirely, evenly and remotely denticulate, to markedly undulate-margined and sparsely hispid and often muriculate above, whitish and densely hispid below, finely muriculate between veins and coarsely muricate on veins below, on petioles 4-7 cm long.

Flowers: Racemose flowers with filiform bracts 5-20 mm long, staminate calyx tube slender, 2-2.5 cm long, subulate lobes, less than half as long as tube; corolla lobed to calyx rim, lobes about equaling calyx tube, pubescent.

Fruits: Ovoid pepo, longitudinally ribbed, 4-5 cm wide, pubescent, on peduncles 4-7 cm long.

Ecology: Found in dry soils, sometimes on limestone soils; 1,500-5,500 ft (457-1676 m); flowers June-September.

Distribution: s and c AZ, s NM, sw TX; south to s MEX.

Notes: A crawling vine distinguished by gray-green-yellowish green leaves with rough, stiff hairs that feel like sandpaper to the touch, wavy leaf margins; large yellow flowers.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Apodanthera comes from the Greek a, meaning without, podos, meaning foot, and anthera or anther, while undulata means wavy.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015

Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
E. Makings  
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Apodanthera undulata image
Gene Sturla