Cucumis sativusL.

garden cucumber

WFO wfo-0000628992 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cucumis sativus, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. a Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-06-29 / obs. 175388546
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Yuliana Dimas
fig. b Yuliana Dimas, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 97419454
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky)
fig. c Юрий Данилевский (Yuriy Danilevsky), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 96768726
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Jason E. Farabaugh
fig. d Jason E. Farabaugh, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 89524781
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. e Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 198349457
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 123394203
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. g Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 26296397
Cucumis sativus, photographed by Craig Hensley
fig. h Craig Hensley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145854316

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 9 botanical countries

Regions where Cucumis sativus is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaMyanmarNepalThailandWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Cucumis sativus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Thailand THA
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 291 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.3 °C 5.1 °C 23.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.0 °C 29.3 °C 37.3 °C
Annual rainfall 411 mm 1,226 mm 3,417 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 138 mm 421 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 291 research-grade observations of Cucumis sativus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 45 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cucumis esculentus Salisb.
  • Cucumis hardwickii Royle
  • Cucumis muricatus Willd.
  • Cucumis rumphii Hassk.
  • Cucumis sativus f. albus M.Hiroe
  • Cucumis sativus f. australis Kitam.
  • Cucumis sativus f. borealis Kitam.
  • Cucumis sativus f. brunnescens Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus f. hardwickii (Royle) W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes
  • Cucumis sativus f. pallescens Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus f. tuberculatus Hiroë
  • Cucumis sativus f. viridis (Ser.) Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus subsp. agrestis Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus subsp. gracilior Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus subsp. rigidus Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus var. albus Ser.
  • Cucumis sativus var. anatolicus Gabaev
  • Cucumis sativus var. anglicus L.H.Bailey
  • Cucumis sativus var. arakis Forssk.
  • Cucumis sativus var. battich-djebbal Forssk.
  • Cucumis sativus var. brullos Forssk.
  • Cucumis sativus var. chatte Forssk.
  • Cucumis sativus var. chiar Forssk.
  • Cucumis sativus var. cilicicus Gabaev

and 21 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.