Here’s one of the things we’ll miss from Cyprus, and we only encountered it during its fruiting season just before we left the island.
Unexploded cucumber
Exploding cucumbers do what it says on the packet – as they ripen they build up a high pressure inside and, when lightly touched, the small, hairy cucumber-fruit bit pops violently.
Clearly a great strategy for distributing seeds, it also creates marvelous fun as adults and kids take turns to touch them, and hope not to get a faceful of sticky seeds.
Thanks, Maia, for introducing us to them in a monastery car park high over Oroklini!
For more on the exploding cucumber, here’s Wikimedia Commons’s entry on Ecballium elaterium.
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[...] Enjoy! Here’s one of the things we’ll miss from Cyprus, and we only encountered it during its fruiting season just before we left the island. Exploding cucumbers do what it says on the packet – as they ripen they build up a high pressure inside and, when lightly touched, the small, hairy cucumber-fruit bit pops violently. Clearly a great strategy for dist … Read More [...]
hi, we came across these plants in Gordes a few years ago and had such hysterics, didn’t have a clue what they were at the time, but it was so much fun trying to poke them without getting too close and then screaming when you got shot!