Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Cucurbitales > Cucurbitaceae > Momordica > Momordica charantia

Momordica charantia (balsampear)

Synonyms: Momordica charantia var. longirostrata; Momordica charantia var. muricata; Momordica charantia var. pseudobalsamina; Momordica charantia var. zeylanica

Wikipedia Abstract

Momordica charantia, known as bitter melon, bitter gourd, bitter squash, or balsam-pear, has names in other languages which have entered English as loanwords, e.g. goya from Okinawan and karela from Sanskrit. It is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean for its edible fruit. Its many varieties differ substantially in the shape and bitterness of the fruit. Bitter melon originated in India and was introduced into China in the 14th century.
View Wikipedia Record: Momordica charantia

Infraspecies

Attributes

Leaf Type [1]  Evergreen
Lifespan [2]  Annual
Structure [1]  Herb

Protected Areas

Predators

Providers

Pollinated by 
Leptotes parrhasioides[11]
Wasmannia auropunctata (electric ant)[11]

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
3HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
4Norrbom, A.L. 2004. Fruit fly (Tephritidae) host plant database. Version Nov, 2004.
5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
6Comparative Ecology of Galapagos Ground Finches (Geospiza Gould): Evaluation of the Importance of Floristic Diversity and Interspecific Competition, Ian Abbott, L. K. Abbott, P. R. Grant, Ecological Monographs, Vol. 47, No. 2, (Spring, 1977), pp. 151-184
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.
8BirdLife International (2012) Species factsheet: Ptilinopus roseicapilla. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 09/09/2012.
9Proyecto Tití
10del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
11Flower-visiting insects of the Galapagos Islands, McCullen, C. K. 1993. Pan-Pacific Entomologist 69:95-106
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