A Mediterranean plant of the gourd family, bearing a small fruit like a cucumber. The fruit falls readily when ripe and forcibly expels an irritant pulp containing its seeds.
喷瓜
Ecballium elaterium, family Cucurbitaceae
Example sentencesExamples
The squirting cucumber bursts open and shoot its seeds up to 27 feet away from the parent plant.
In certain cases, as with impatiens, squirting cucumbers, and trigger plants, the fruits explode on contact, an adaptation that favors the dispersal of seeds over their protection.
The squirting cucumber can be found on sandy and stony ground, stone walls, grassy places, waste and fallow land.
The squirting cucumber is sometimes cultivated for its use as a medicinal plant.
When the green, inflated, spiny fruits of the squirting cucumber are ripe, they eject their seeds under hydrostatic pressure so they are dispersed some distance away from the parent plant.