Hedgehog or teasel gourd Stems up to several m long, hispid. Leaves cordate, reniform to broadly ovate with a basal sinus, blades 2-8 cm long, 3-9 cm wide, sometimes shallowly 3-lobed, both surfaces hispid, margins denticulate, apex obtuse, petioles 2-10 cm long. Staminate flowers solitary or in clusters of 2-4, pedicels 6-12 mm long, calyx lobes linear, 2-3 mm long, corolla lobes yellow, 7-12 mm long; pistillate flowers solitary, sometimes co-axillary with staminate flowers, pedicels 2-6 mm long, hypanthium 6-10 mm long, hispid. Fruit yellow, subglobose to ellipsoid, 2-7 cm long, 1.5-3.5 cm in diameter, densely and softly spiny or bristly, spines slender, 3-8 mm long, pulp green. Seeds very pale brown, 3-5 mm long. [2n = 24.] Native to eastern Africa; in Hawaii widely naturalized in dry, disturbed sites, 0-400 m, on all of the main islands except Molokai. First collected on 0‘ahu in 1903 (Bryan s.n., BISH).—Plate 75.