Momordica
Description
Small or large climbers, annual or perennial, glabrous or pubescent;
Leaves:
Inflorescences:
Flowers medium or large, sometimes ± zygomorphic, petals imbricate, white, cream(-white) or yellow, free, margin entire.
Fruit solitary, pendulous, (ovoid-)ellipsoid, fusiform or subglobose, ± fleshy, often ornamented with soft spines, warts or ridges, glabrous, indehiscent or ± 3-valved, with few or numerous seeds in orange or red pulp.
Seeds little or distinctly compressed, smooth or sculptured, margin distinct or faint, edge often undulate, sometimes grooved.
Distribution
Africa present, Asia present, Asia-Tropical, Old World present
About 40 species in the Old World, most species in Africa; 10 species in Asia; in Malesia 5 species.
Morphology
Male inflorescences are axillary. The male flowers are solitary or in fascicles or in racemes. In Asia each stalked solitary flower represents a one-flowered inflorescence, in which the flower is subtended by a single smallish or large sessile bract. The portion below the bract is the peduncle; the portion above the bract the pedicel. In Asia, the thence one-flowered peduncles are solitary, or (in M. clarkeana) arranged in loose fascicles or pseudo-racemes. Likewise this can be observed in female inflorescences and consequently the fruit stalk consists of the peduncle and the pedicel, usually with a bract scar at base of the pedicel.
Uses
Young shoots and fruits of some species are used as vegetables, or used for medicinal purposes.
Citation
Backer 1964 – In: Backer & Bakh.f., Fl. Java 1: 299
H.Schaef. & S.S.Renner 2010 – In: Molec. Phylogen. Evol.: 553
L. 2008 – In: Fl. Thailand: 464
H.Schaefer., Heibl & S.S.Renner 2009 – In: Proc. Roy. Soc. London,: 843
L. 1754: Gen. Pl., ed. 5: 440
Cogn. 1881 – In: A.DC. & C.DC., Monogr. Phan. 3: 427
W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes 2002 – In: Bot. Zhurn. (Moscow & St. Petersburg): 133
C.Jeffrey 2001 – In: Hanelt, Mansfeld’s encycl. agric. hort. crops 3: 1521