Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Malvales > Malvaceae > Abelmoschus > Abelmoschus esculentus

Abelmoschus esculentus (okra)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Okra or okro (US /ˈoʊkrə/ or UK /ˈɒkrə/), known in many English-speaking countries as ladies' fingers, ochro or gumbo, is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of West African, Ethiopian, and South Asian origins. The plant is cultivated in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions around the world.
View Wikipedia Record: Abelmoschus esculentus

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  The hairs on the seed pods can be an irritant to some people and gloves should be worn when harvesting. These hairs can be easily removed by washing;
Lifespan [2]  Annual
Pollinators [2]  Bees
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [2]  A fibre obtained from the stems is used as a substitute for jute; It is also used in making paper and textiles; The fibres are about 2.4mm long; When used for paper the stems are harvested in late summer or autumn after the edible seedpods have been harvested, the leaves are removed and the stems are steamed until the fibres can be stripped off. The fibres are cooked for 2 hours with lye and then put in a ball mill for 3 hours. The paper is cream coloured; A decoction of the root or of the seeds is used as a size for paper;
Height [2]  39 inches (1 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Abelmoschus esculentus

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0