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Melothria (probably a name for a bryony-like plant; melon is Greek for apple, which may refer to the shape of the fruit). Cucurbitaceae. Slender herbaceous vines, climbing or trailing, annual or perennial, with small yellow or white flowers and sometimes attractive little fruits, found in warmer parts of the world.

Plants with simple tendrils at the axils and very small monoecious, dioecious or polygamous fls., the sterile usually in corymbs or racemes, the fertile solitary and often slender-stalked: lvs. entire, lobed or divided: fls. white or yellow; sepals 5; corolla 5-lobed, campanulate; stamens in sterile fls. 3 or 5, more or less connate by the anthers, in the fertile fls. reduced to rudiments: fr. a small pulpy pendulous berry, with usually many flat horizontal seeds.—Species perhaps 70, widely distributed, a few of them native from Pa. and Fla. to Texas.

Four kinds appear to be in the trade, M. scabra, M. japonica, M. maderaspatana and M. punctata, the last being perhaps the best. These are slender but rapid growing half-hardy annual climbers, which may be grown indoors in winter, but preferably outdoors in summer for covering unsightly objects. They are attractive in fruit.

Cogniaux (in DC. Mon. Phan., Vol. 3, 1881) makes three sections of the genus. M. scabra, M. pendula, and M. japonica, belong to the first, M. punctata to the second, and M. maderaspatana to the third. M. punctata has sensitive tendrils.

Section I. Eumelothria. Fls. usually monoecious, males mostly racemose and females solitary; anthers subseasile: fr. mostly with long and slender peduncles; seeds usually not margined and smooth.

Section II. Solena. Fls. mostly dioecious, males corymbose; anthers borne on rather long filaments, the connective not produced: fr. mostly short-peduncled; seeds mostly margined and smooth.

Section III. Mukia. Fls. monoecious, males clustered and females solitary; anthers subsessile, the connective apiculate: fr. subsessile; seeds margined, usually pitted.
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==Cultivation==


===Propagation===


===Pests and diseases===


==Varieties==


==Gallery==

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==References==
<references/>
*[[Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture]], by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
<!--- xxxxx *Flora: The Gardener's Bible, by Sean Hogan. Global Book Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0881925381 -->
<!--- xxxxx *American Horticultural Society: A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, by Christopher Brickell, Judith D. Zuk. 1996. ISBN 0789419432 -->
<!--- xxxxx *Sunset National Garden Book. Sunset Books, Inc., 1997. ISBN 0376038608 -->

==External links==
*{{wplink}}

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