Native cucumbers and spiny cucumbers differ in shape. A spiny cucumber is a wild cucumber. The growth cycle of wild cucumbers is very long, usually between 4-6 years. Judging from its appearance, its stature is very small. Even when it grows into adulthood, its height will not exceed 40 centimeters.

The local cucumber fruit is oblong or cylindrical, 10-30 (-50) cm long, yellow-green when ripe, with a rough surface and prickly knob-like protrusions, which are very rare and almost smooth. Seeds are small, narrowly ovate, white, edgeless, with sharp tips at both ends, about 5-10 mm long. Flowering and fruiting period in summer.

The stems of spiny cucumbers are soft and slender, with smooth and clean skin. They have strong climbing ability. If they are attached to bushes, they can grow into a green barrier. If there is no attachment, its stems can only crawl on the ground and become a semi-recumbent growth posture. The leaves of wild cucumbers vary greatly. They are oval in the seedling stage and become fan-shaped in adulthood, with three cracks of different sizes. However, its leaves also have one of the biggest features, which is that the petiole is thick and the epidermis is covered with a layer of fine white hairs.

Cucumber is an annual trailing or climbing herbaceous plant of the Cucurbitaceae family. The stems and branches are elongated, furrowed, and covered with white rough hairs. The tendrils are thin. The petiole is slightly rough, with rough hairs; the leaves are broadly ovate, heart-shaped, membranous, with triangular lobes and teeth. Monoecious. Male flowers: Constant flowers clustered in leaf axils; pedicels are slender and puberulent.

Wild cucumber has mild properties and a slightly sweet taste. It has the effects of strengthening the spleen and stomach, clearing away heat and improving eyesight. It also has a very obvious therapeutic effect on indigestion and bloating.

Local cucumbers are cool in nature, sweet in taste, and slightly poisonous; they enter the lung, stomach, and large intestine meridians. It clears away heat and diuresis, detoxifies and reduces swelling, produces body fluid and quenches thirst. It is mainly used to treat diseases such as body heat and polydipsia, sore throat, eye diseases caused by wind-heat, jaundice due to damp-heat, and difficulty in urination.