Balsampear

Fruits are often used as a vegetable. The seed kernels are used for the extraction of a semi-drying oil. The tuberous root is used in medicine. The roots of female plants are larger than those of the male and are preferred for medicinal uses. They are applied in bleeding piles and urinary complaints. The root paste is applied over the body as a sedative in fever.

Perennial climbers with unbranched, glabrous tendrils, dioecious. Root tuberous. Leaves broadly ovate, membranous, c. 6.0 x 5.0 cm, glabrous on both sides, deeply 3-5-lobed, lobes trianglular ovate or oblong, acute, with undulate or minutely remotely denticulate margin; petiole 1-3 cm long, puberulous. Male flowers 5-6 cm across, yellow, on 4-6 cm long peduncles; bracts large, sessile, entire, glabrous, often ciliated or villous on both surfaces, cucullate, suborbicular or reniform, partly enclosing the flower. Petals 2-3 x 1.5-2.5 cm, obtuse. Female flowers yellow, on c. 2.5 cm long, ebracteate or minutely bracteate peduncles; calyx lobes linear-lanceolate, 5-6 mm long, villous; corolla similar to male flowers. Ovary ovoid, covered with long and soft papillae. Fruit ovoid or ellipsoid, 3-5 cm long, 2-3.5 cm across, yellow when mature, densely covered with soft spines, shortly beaked (rostrate) at apex. Seeds somewhat compressed, 6-7 x 5-6 mm, irregularly corrugated.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Sikkim), India, Ceylon, Burma east to W. China, Malaya.

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma and China.

1100 m

Fl. Per.: July-October.

A full Spiny gourd (Momordica dioica) with two halved and two cross sections.

Momordica dioica, commonly known as spiny gourd or spine gourd and also known as bristly balsam pear, is a species of flowering plant in the Cucurbitaceae/gourd family. It is used as a vegetable in all regions of India and some parts in South Asia. It has commercial importance and is exported and used locally. The fruits are cooked with spices, or fried and sometimes eaten with meat or fish. It is propagated by underground tubers. It has small leaves, small yellow flowers, it has small, dark green, round or oval fruits. It is dioecious, which means that it has distinct male and female individual organisms, hence its name.

flower of Momordica dioica