Okra

esculentus: edible

Annual herb, up to 2 m, widely cultivated for its edible fruit. Leaves up to 25 cm, almost round in outline, deeply, palmately lobed, more or less densely hairy on both surfaces, particularly on the veins; margin serrate. Flowers in terminal clusters or solitary in the leaf axils, up to 8 cm in diameter, yellow with a purple centre. Epicalyx with 10-12 bracts, narrowly linear triangular, up to 25 mm. Fruit a capsule, more or less narrowly ellipsoid, up to 14 cm.

Native of Tropical Asia, now widely cultivated throughout the tropics.