Habit: Perennial herb; tuber large; occasionally temporarily dioecious.
Stem: +- scabrous or hairy, glabrous in age; tendril branched.
Leaf: +- round, +- cordate, +- 5--7-lobed.
Inflorescence: staminate flowers in racemes or panicles (or 1 flower per node early); pistillate flower 1 per node, generally at same nodes as staminate.
Flower: sepals 0; staminate flower 3--15 mm wide, rotate to cup-shaped, white to cream or yellow-green; stamens fused, anthers twisted together; stigma (pistillate flowers) 1, +- hemispheric.
Fruit: capsule, irregular-dehiscent from tip, +- symmetric, 3--20 cm, spheric to ovate or oblong, +- prickly, beak << body or 0.
Seed: 1--many, generally > 1 cm, +- ovate, +- flat.
Species In Genus: 7 species: western North America.
Etymology: (Hebrew: bitter, from taste of all parts)
Unabridged Note: Sometimes included in Echinocystis.Jepson eFlora Author: John M. Miller & Robert L. Schlising
Reference: Borchert 2006 Ecol Res 21:641--650
Unabridged Reference: Nicholls & Bohm 1982 J Nat Prod 45:453--454; Schlising 1969 Amer J Bot 56:552--561Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Marah
Previous taxon: Cucurbita pepo var. pepoNext taxon: Marah fabacea