Keys for and morphological character variation in some Egyptian cultivars of Cucurbitaceae

The cultivated varieties and landraces of Cucurbitaceae growing in Egypt are presented, 27 taxa, belonging to three genera, six species, and five subspecies. These characters are arranged according to their usefulness for identifications as follow: fruit characters, seed characters and trichome type. Fruit characters are a good taxonomic tool at varietal level when combined with the other vegetative characters. Two keys to 27 cultivated varieties of Cucurbitaceae (Cucumis, Cucurbita and Luffa) were constructed using the DELTA software system. One key is used for identification, and then the other is used as a confirmatory key. Those keys were built using 36 morphological characters include vegetative, floral, fruit and seed characters. There is a significant correlation between seed size and growth parameters. The growth parameters of the studied taxa included leaf length/size, petiole length and corolla length. There is a highly positive, significant correlation between seed volume and leaf size (r = 0.81831, P a parts per thousand currency sign 0.001), seed volume and petiole length (r = 0.79112, P a parts per thousand currency sign 0.001), seed volume and leaf length (r = 0.83566, P a parts per thousand currency sign 0.001), and seed volume and corolla length (r = 0.59108, P a parts per thousand currency sign 0.001).