Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Coarse annual vine with lobate leaves and large, long-spined fruits; stems coarsely ribbed, tendrils strongly ribbed, pubescent.

Leaves: Orbicular, deeply and broadly notched at base, dentate, undulate, 3-5 lobed, acute lobes, mucronate, blade 5-8 cm wide, finely hispid on both surfaces.

Flowers: Staminate flowers in simple or compound racemes; pubescent calyx, corolla 6-8 mm wide, rotate.

Fruits: Obovate, tapering to base, 2-2.5 cm long, stipitate-glandular, 4-8 seeded, prickles 1-2 cm long.

Ecology: Found on alluvial plains and on gentle slopes, along streams and climbing on shrubs; 3,000-4,000 ft (914-1219 m); flowers July-October. 

Distribution: se AZ, sw NM, TX; south to c MEX and in C. Amer.

Notes: A vine with ovate or pointed-lobed leaves and white flowers; the fruits are quite distinctive with large prickles.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Echinopepon comes from the Greek echinos for hedgehog or spine and pepon derives form pepo, while wrightii is named for Charles Wright (1811-1885), an American botanical collector.

Synonyms: Elaterium wrightii

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015