General Information

COMMON NAMES: Balsam Pear, Bitter Gourd, Bitter Cucumber, Bitter Melon; German Balsambirne TRADITIONAL NAMES: Pōkutekute (AT), Menemene (AK) GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE Africa - Asia - Australia - Malesia - Melanesia - ?Polynesia (or Polynesian Introduced) COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Recent Introduction (~1900), Naturalised (but Native or Polynesian Introduced to Tahiti); S.Group - common and widespread; Land, lowlands - mountains (++++) SIGNIFICANCE LIST: Seed Food; Weed - moderate KEY FEATURES: Annual trailing vine to 5m with two forms: Vegetable (not in Cooks) more robust and grown for its larger fruit; and Wild (in Cooks) a weed with rarely eaten, small, unpleasant tasting fruit. STEM angled, hairy, slender to 3mmØ. LEAVES alternate, heart-shaped, to 8x8cm, with ~5 main oval lobes, dull green, furry; stalk to 4cm; tendril axillary, undivided. FLOWER unisexual, both genders on each plant; 2.5cmØ, petals 5 oval, yellow. FRUIT (Weed) oval, to 6x3cm(LxØ), spiny, ripening orange and bursting open, unpleasant tasting. FRUIT (Vegetable) cylindrical, to 25cm, warty, ripening orange, but cooked and eaten green. SEEDS bright red, oval and flat, to 10x7x4mm, slimy.

Cook Islands Distribution

View Distribution Map

Southern Group: Present    Makatea: Present
RR	MG	AT	MK	MT	AK	PL	TK	MN
++++	++++	++++	-	-	+++	-		-

Northern Group: -
TN	MH	RK	PK	NS	SW
-	-	-	-	-	-

Momordica charantia Linnaeus
SYNONYMS: Momordica balsamina [sensu GW]; Momordica charantia var. abbreviata [wild form]

TAXONOMY: PLANTAE; ANTHOPHYTA (=Angiospermae); MAGNOLIOPSIDA (=Dicotyledones); DILLENIIDAE; Violales; CUCURBITACEAE

SIGNIFICANCE NOTES -
POSITIVE SIGNIFICANCE: Seed Food. Comments: Aitutaki: seeds eaten children.
NEGATIVE SIGNIFICANCE: Weed - moderate. Comments: A widespread low-climbing vine in fallow and waste areas.

GENERAL NOTE: A.C.Smith (Flora Vitiensis Nova, 1981) "probably indigenous in southern Pacific, having been obtained in Tahiti by the first Cook expedition. It could, of course, have been an aboriginal introduction, but this is not suggested by it usually coastal habitat." Elsewhere there are edible varieties of this species known as Bitter Melons or Foo Gwa. For example, a variety known as Short Bitter-Melon is commonly found in markets in Fiji.

Vouchers:
None Recorded.

References:
p.572 Wagner et al.- Flowering Plants of Hawaii
p.808 Neal - In Gardens of Hawaii
p.737 Hortus 3rd
p.753 Royal Hort. Soc. Index of Garden Plants
p.383 Tropica
p.2/675 A.C.Smith - Flora Vitiensis Nova
p.103 Wilder - Flora of Rarotonga
p.392e Whistler - Ethnobotany of the Cook Islands
p.84 McCormack/Kunzle - Rarotonga's Mountain Tracks and Plants

Data Update History (information):
zTX, zB02, zM02, zupM03a, mD05b

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