Hi there.. We have a wild vine that has taken over a dirt pile by our house. It's grown fast & today I noticed it has a little Orange fruit growing on it. Could you tell me what this may be & if there are any culinary uses for it? It smells sweet..

Hi Cancice,
Your vine reminds me of a Passiflora of some sort. Can you give us a general idea of what part of the country this vine is growing? That will help with a more exact ID.

It might be Passion Flower (Passiflora edulis)
http://www.missouribotanicalga...

Lin, the size and shape of the fruit does look like a Passi, but the inside looks much more like a cucumber to me. Passi's have thick skin and orange pulp with black seeds in it.

There is a variety of cucumber called 'Lemon' that has fruits that size, shape and color. I used to grow them in Utah, and they are delicious. If it were me, I'd try a tiny taste of the flesh and see what it tastes like. Cucumber (Cucumis sativus 'Lemon')

Also the leaves look more like cucumber or melon to me. It might be a 'pocket melon' but they tend to develop stripes. Dudaim Melon (Cucumis melo subsp. melo)

Candice is it possible that your dirt pile used to be a compost heap? That would explain the presence of odd seeds in there.

The vine seems to have some green fuzzy looking flowers, is it possible to get a close-up of one? I don't think I'd taste it until we're sure what it is. I used to grow lemon cucumbers and my recollection is that they were more pear-shaped, and they wouldn't have flowers like that. Edited to correct that looking at pics they're rounder than I remembered but still wondering about those green flowers.....

Were the fruit striped before they turned yellow? It might be Stinking Gourd.

My first thought was cucumber as well.

Welcome to NGA, @Candice !

I just noticed there appear to be purple flowers on the green fuzzy things. I agree that the cut fruit looks like a cucumber but the flowers aren't like a cucumber at all. I'm assuming they are attached to the same plant as the fruits, which Candice says are "little".

BTW forgot to say Candice

I live in Mississippi.. The dirt was dug to make a pad for a new slab that was poured.. It's been gathered up by the house for a month or two. On the back side of the mound, the flowers are purple & the fruits are smaller & are green.. Sort of like a lime? I was told by a friend that it looks to be a "maypop"? Supposedly you can make jelly from them.. This orange one is apparently a fully ripe one.. The lighter orange ones had light stripes that would remind you of a watermelon.. The inside to me smells sweet.. Sort of a honeysuckle type smell.. I'll take another photo tomorrow.. ;)

It's not maypop, Candice. Maypop is a wild passion fruit and the flowers don't look anything like that. Neither do the leaves.

Are you sure the purple flowers 'belong' to the vine that has the fruits ? Could they be something else growing amongst the vine?

Immature cucumbers or melons would be green. The immature fruits on my Lemon cucumbers were very pale green before they started turning yellow. Mature fruits were the size of a lemon, some large and some smaller and exactly the shape of those in your picture. Is the skin smooth or are there any little sharp-ish bumps on it? Especially the orange-y ones might have almost short thorns on the skin. If they have those, then I'm sure they're cucumbers. If not then The picture of the interior sure looks like a cuke.

I'm going to move this to the Plant ID forum, maybe some more members can contribute.

It's a wild form of Cucumis melo.

Cantaloupe?

I agree that the vine with the golden orange fruit looks like Cucumis.
The purple flowers in green hairy clusters belong to another plant entirely. It appears to be a species of Jacquemontia, very possibly this...



to NGA, Candice!

I agree it's not a passion flower of any type. My guess is it's a seedling from a muskmelon you may have ate ether last year or earlier this year that sprouted.

I think Danita is right, the hairy clusters with purple flowers do look like Jacquemontia tamnifolia. That would seem to make the orange fruits on the other plant quite small? Candice, can you measure a typical fruit or take a photo of one next to an object such as a coin so we can get an idea of the relative size?

sooby said:I think Danita is right, the hairy clusters with purple flowers do look like Jacquemontia tamnifolia. That would seem to make the orange fruits on the other plant quite small? Candice, can you measure a typical fruit or take a photo of one next to an object such as a coin so we can get an idea of the relative size?

Those fruit are small. Here are some that I have photographed in this area.

I still think it looks like Stinking Gourd - Google it and see what you think.

porkpal said:I still think it looks like Stinking Gourd - Google it and see what you think.

One problem with that. Stinking Gourds "stink" and Candice said this one smells sweet.

Danita said:... a species of Jacquemontia

That's what I thought when I saw the flowers. There must be two different plants here. Can you separate the two and take photos of just the one with the fruits?