Cucumbers can exhibit different flowering and vining characteristics. Flowering Predominantly gynoecious cultivars produce almost all female flowers on the same plant, so they must be interplanted with monoecious pollenizer plants that produce mostly male flowers. In cucumbers, all predominantly gynoecious cultivars are hybrids but not all hybrids are predominantly gynoecious. Monoecious cultivars produce separate male and female flowers on the same plant. An example of a hybrid monoecious inbred is Poinsett 76.
Hybrids are the offspring derived by crossing two unique inbred lines.
Seed from fruits produced from hybrid seed cannot be saved because two specific inbred lines must be used exclusively to obtain hybrid seed. Seed can be saved from an open-pollinated cultivar. That seed will produce the same cultivar when grown the following season. Because hybrids bring greater revenue from seed sales, most commercially sold cultivars are hybrids and not inbreds. Nonfertilized fruits are seedless.