They filmed the seed dispersal using a high-speed camera, which captured up to 8,600 frames per second. They then measured the fruit and stem volume both before and after dispersal, performed indentation tests, took CT scans of an intact cucumber, and monitored the fruit with time-lapse photography in the days leading up to the seed launch.

Squirting cucumbers blast their seeds over distances hundreds of times their length, and now scientists say they have found the secret to how the plants do it.

Scientists say they’ve worked out how the plant can fire its seeds up to almost 40 feet. The hairy, ground-hugging vines of the squirting cucumber Ecballium elaterium might seem like an ordinary weedy plant.

"Ballistic seed dispersal" is not something you see often in plants – and for good reason, perhaps, when you see just what the affectionately called squirting cucumber is capable of. Shunning external helping hands like wind or animals,