Changes

*Bitter gourd, balsam pear, bitter melon, karela, African cucumber (En). *Margose, concombre amer, paroka, concombre africain (Fr). *Melão de São Caetano, balsamina longa (Po). *Karela (Sw).

*Monoecious annual climbing or trailing herb with stems up to 5 m long; stem ridged, glabrous or hairy; tendrils simple. *Leaves alternate, simple; stipules absent; petiole 1.5–7 cm long; blade broadly ovate-reniform or orbicular in outline, 2.5–10 cm × 3–12.5 cm, cordate at base, deeply palmately (3–)5(–7)-lobed, lobes usually sinuate-lobulate, glabrous or pubescent. *Flowers solitary in leaf axils, unisexual, regular, 5-merous, with a prominent bract at base of pedicel; calyx with obconic tube and lobes up to 7 mm long; petals free, obovate-lingulate, up to 2 cm long, pale yellow to orange-yellow, 2 with scales inside at base; male flowers with 3 stamens, anthers coherent in centre of flower; female flowers with inferior, ovoid to fusiform, muricate-tuberculate ovary, stigma 3-lobed. *Fruit a pendulous broadly ovoid and beaked to attenuate-ellipsoid berry up to 11 cm × 4 cm, but in cultivars up to 45 cm × 9 cm, reddish-orange when ripe, with a paler apex, ornamented with about 8 longitudinal rows of subconical tubercles and many smaller tubercles in between, splitting into 3 valves and exposing the seeds sheathed in sticky red pulp hanging in 2 rows from the faces of each valve; cultivated fruits with smooth to spiny surface, often with rounded knobs in rows between 8–10 lengthwise ridges, but in some cultivars completely spiny without ridges. *Seeds oblong, c. 10 mm × 5 mm, flattened, white or brown, testa sculptured, margins grooved.

* G.N. Njoroge , Botany Department, Jomo Kenyatta University, P.O. Box 62000, Nairobi, Kenya * M.N. van Luijk

* M.N. van Luijk, Hugo de Grootstraat 136A, 2613 TX Delft, Netherlands