Cucumis maderaspatanus

Cucumis maderaspatanus (madras pea-pumpkin), long known as Mukia maderaspatana, is a slender, trailing or climbing annual of the gourd family that scrambles over the ground and other vegetation by means of simple tendrils. The stems are rough-hairy and angular; the alternate leaves are roughly triangular to broadly heart-shaped or shallowly three- to five-lobed, with toothed, bristly margins. Small yellow unisexual flowers arise singly or in clusters in the leaf axils, the males and females borne on the same plant. The fruit is a small, smooth, globose berry about 8–12 mm in diameter, green and often striped when young, ripening bright red. Widely distributed across tropical Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, Southeast Asia, and northern Australia, it grows as a weed of hedges, thickets, cultivated land, and disturbed ground.