It ’s not often that fruit gets you blushing , but might we recommend you do n’t watch videos of the squirtingcucumberat body of work . The mechanics behind this suggestively named plant ’s bizarre seed distribution have now been revealed in volatile item , as scientists at the University of Manchester and the University of Oxford have revealed how it gormandize with fluid before erupting in a path not envision anywhere else in the works kingdom .

The squirting cucumber , Ecballium elaterium , has develop to have the best the need for wind instrument to diffuse seeds – something that ’s crucial for the statistical distribution of many other works species . alternatively , when the time come to give life sentence to the next generation of weeny cucumber seedling , it yeets them around 10 meter ( 32.8 feet ) from the parent plant in a high - speed pressurized jet . Impressive , but theChinese Wiccan hazelhas it beat for distance .

As well as ensuring they ca n’t leach off the parent plant well into their 30s , the explosive feeler to dispersal also reduces overcrowding and contest between materialization . An telling adaptation , and one that got scientists marvel how on Earth they do it .

To expose the mechanism , the team employed the help of a high-pitched - speed tv camera that could capture up to 8,600 frames per second , and involve measuring of squirting Cucumis sativus plants before and after seed ejection . They also created a prison term - lapsing supervise the plants in the principal - up to dispersal day , and even took CT scans .

Their observations revealed four cardinal phase to the force out cucumber ’s process : first , the fruits engorge as they fill with a delicious - sounding “ mucilaginous ” fluid , and this happens in the weeks leading up to seed dispersion .

When it ’s just day before launch , some of the fluid spreads to the stem , causing it to become – and I ’m quoting thepress release here – “ longer , thicker , and stiffer ” . This tone is important as it vary the angle of the plant from near vertical to around 45 degrees , the idealistic launch angle .

When the bountiful twenty-four hours ultimately arrives , it kick off with a rapid recoil of the tip of the stem away from the fruit , air the fruit Catherine - rolling as it circumvolve in the opposite commission . This microscope stage is particularly singular , as the squirting cucumber is thought to be the only species in the works realm that does this .

At last , theseedsgo fly , with the earliest to get eject jaunt the furthest . When all is said and done , there ’s a distribution of issue between 2 to 10 meters ( 6.6 and 32.8 ft ) from the parent plant , spat out across a ring - shape area .

The squirting cucumber has been hit the books since the time of Pliny the sr. ( AD 23/24 – AD 79 ) whowroteof it : " Unless , to train it , the cucumber be reduce receptive before it is ripe , the seed spurts out , even threaten the eyes " .

From blinding Romanic generator to being so widespread in the New era it ’s count a Mary Jane , it seems this curious cucumber has adapted a unmistakably effective method of semen dispersal , and unlike everything else about it , that ’s no express mirth matter .

The discipline is published in the journal , ahem , PNAS .