Dear Usha ji It is good that you have thrown some light on the plant uploaded by Nabha ji 0n September 7. Incidently your mail has given interesting turn to the said plant, but I fear there is some confusion. Chayote (sechium edule) is a cucurbit of tropical America, cultivated in many parts of the world. I have seen it being sold in Darjeeling and Sikkim on my two or three visits to the area. It must be cultivated in many parts of that area (sometimes self sown) but it is surely not the plant uploaded by Nabha ji. Fortunately I saw a lot of Sechium edule in Markets of California and was able to photograph it growing in a house. Its leaves are like those of Cucurbita with angled or shallowly lobed leaves, and fruits don't have curved pointed tip found in Nabha ji's plant, which also has much deeply divided leaves with divisions almost to the base. I am uploading the photographs of Sechium ediule separately. I request you and other colleagues to kindly compare the photographs of Sechium edule uploaded by me and the one uploaded by Megha ji as sweet karela. May be after comparing the two, you can decide better on the said plant. Dr. Gurcharan Singh Associate Professor SGTB Khalsa College University of Delhi, Delhi India http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45 ----- Original Message ----- From: usha lachungpa To: Ulhas ; [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:40 AM Subject: [indiantreepix:20841] Re: Fwd: [indiantreepix:18961] Re: sweet karela
Dear Ulhas and All, The plant in question is a commonly grown cucurbit vegetable locally called 'Chuchchey Karela'. I have lived here over 20 years and nobody calls it sweet karela . Chuchchey in Nepali means 'bent' or 'curved'. The fruit is hooked at the tip, its black seeds are somewhat like that of bitter gourd and hence it is called 'Karela'. But it is not sweet at all. Its like many people calling fresh water as sweet water compared to salt water. It grows prolifically around 1500 to about 2400m almost throughout Sikkim around this time. We commonly consume the fruits and mom-in-law taught me to pluck tender leaves as vegetable. I tasted the raw fruits and found them very edible, like young cucumbers and began plucking them at that stage so we could eat them whole. But most are sold in the market as mature vegetable and people have to split them open, de-seed them and cook along with potatoes usually. They are as cheap as another prolific cucurbit that literally infests every shrub and tree around this time of year locally called 'Iskus' Sechium edule or Chow-chow to Bangaloreans. Check out http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sechium_edule and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote I tried unsuccessfully to find pictures of Gomphogyne cissiformis as suggested by Dr. Gurcharan. It is also not Momordica cochinchinensis, another local vegetable. Will check up and get back. Kind regards, Usha On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Ulhas <[email protected]> wrote: Dear Usha Can you throw some light on this plant / vegetable from Sikkim? Best wishes Ulhas ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "J.M. Garg" <[email protected]> Date: Oct 13, 12:54 pm Subject: Fwd: [indiantreepix:18961] Re: sweet karela To: indiantreepix Forwarding again for Id assistance pl. Earlier relevant feedback: *"Nabha ji you seem to have found a and photographed one of the least known plants. Meetha karela, Bhaat karela, Kheksa, Padora, Kakaura, Kaksa all names of spinegourd, A plant with many virtues, and botanically Momordica dioicaRoxb. * * Your plant is is not clearly this species. There is no information on the net, not even common names of what I think is your plant, perhaps Gomphogyne cissiformis Griff, growing in Kumaon, Sikkim and Lachoong. You have to confirm the size of fruit (length), size of seed, and whether latter has small tubercles (teeth like structures) at ends.* * The plant is very poory known, and my identification is purely on the basis of scanty information. It needs critical scrutiny by other members. Dr. Gurcharan Singh" * *"Gurcharan ji, thanks for your feed back. I havn't eaten the fruits yet so i can take more fotos and send them here. Well. sweet karela was also not known to me, till ivisited sikkim. It was sold in one shop where we stopped for Lunch and if i remember ok, the hotel and the sho were on the main road to Gangtok along the Teesta river. Perhaps there are people from Sikkim or Bengal in the group who may have some more ideas. The fruits are longish, the tip is bent a bit, and the fruits have a few (3 or 4) thorn like things, but very thin like hair perhaps 1 to 1,5 cm long Here one can read about sweet karela **http://www.livemint.com/ 2008/10/31232217/The-secrets-of-Sikkim.htmlbut*<http:// www.livemint.com/2008/10/31232217/The-secrets-of-Sikkim.htmlbut> * the picture is not of s.k. in **www.avani-kumaon.org/annual_reports/anrep04-05 (E).docthere*<http://www.avani-kumaon.org/annual_reports/anrep04-05 (E).docthere> * a ref to s.k. Perhaps there are people from Sikkim or Bengal in the group who may have some more ideas. Regards Nalini"* ** *"Nabha ji Your first link did not open. The second link leads to page that lists Sweet karela, but as I told you earlier, most people know sweet karela as Momordica dioica. Your plant is much different from this.* *Dr. Gurcharan Singh"* ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: nabha meghani <[email protected]> Date: 2009/9/20 Subject: [indiantreepix:18961] Re: sweet karela To: Devendra Bhardwaj <[email protected]>, indiantreepix < [email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Hallo, here are some more pictures of sweet karela. After waiting for a while for some replies, I prepared the karelas yesterday. They were not 'sweet', but they were also not bitter. I am still alive. But I think, I wud eat only a few of them at a time. I don't know, if my plants survive the winter. Will see. Reghards Nalini ----- Original Message ----- From: "Devendra Bhardwaj" <[email protected]> To: "indiantreepix" <[email protected]> Cc: "nabha meghani" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 2:27 AM Subject: Fw: [indiantreepix:17814] sweet karela Forwarding again for Id confirmation pl. Earlier relevant feedback: Nabha ji you seem to have found a and photographed one of the least known plants. Meetha karela, Bhaat karela, Kheksa, Padora, Kakaura, Kaksa all names of spinegourd, A plant with many virtues, and botanically Momordica dioica Roxb. Your plant is is not clearly this species. There is no information on the net, not even common names of what I think is your plant, perhaps Gomphogyne cissiformis Griff, growing in Kumaon, Sikkim and Lachoong. You have to confirm the size of fruit (length), size of seed, and whether latter has small tubercles (teeth like structures) at ends. The plant is very poory known, and my identification is purely on the basis of scanty information. It needs critical scrutiny by other members. Dr. Gurcharan Singh Associate Professor SGTB Khalsa College University of Delhi, Delhi India Gurcharan ji, thanks for your feed back. I havn't eaten the fruits yet so i can take more fotos and send them here. Well. sweet karela was also not known to me, till ivisited sikkim. It was sold in one shop where we stopped for Lunch and if i remember ok, the hotel and the sho were on the main road to Gangtok along the Teesta river. Perhaps there are people from Sikkim or Bengal in the group who may have some more ideas. The fruits are longish, the tip is bent a bit, and the fruits have a few (3 or 4) thorn like things, but very thin like hair perhaps 1 to 1,5 cm long Here one can read about sweet karelahttp://www.livemint.com/2008/10/31232217/The-secrets-of-Sikkim.htmlbut the picture is not of s.k. inwww.avani-kumaon.org/annual_reports/anrep04-05(E).docthere a ref to s.k.. Perhaps there are people from Sikkim or Bengal in the group who may have some more ideas. Regards Nalini Nabha ji Your first link did not open. The second link leads to page that lists Sweet karela, but as I told you earlier, most people know sweet karela as Momordica dioica. Your plant is much different from this. Dr. Gurcharan Singh Associate Professor SGTB Khalsa College University of Delhi, Delhi India --- On Mon, 7/9/09, nabha meghani <[email protected]> wrote: > From: nabha meghani <[email protected]> > Subject: [indiantreepix:17814] sweet karela > To: "indiantreepix" <[email protected]> > Date: Monday, 7 September, 2009, 2:23 AM > Hallo, > in Feb 2009 I visited > Sikkim. One Sabjiwala > gave me some seeds of sweet karela. I put them in a pot in > April. > In the beginning it did > not want to grow, the > summer was very dry. Now it is raining a lot and the > Karelas are getting > bigger everyday. > I shall be able to > harvest 7 Karelas > now. > I shall enjoy eating > karelasabji and > remembering my trip to Sikkim. > Until my visit to Sikkim I > did not know that > Karelas are also sweet. I knew only the bitter > ones. > Does this Plant have an > ID? > Regards > Nalini See the Web's breaking stories, chosen by people like you. Check out Yahoo! Buzz.http://in.buzz.yahoo.com/ -- With regards, J.M.Garg ([email protected])http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1 'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna' Image Resource of thousands of my images of Birds, Butterflies, Flora etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise):http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Category:J.M.Garg For learning about Indian Flora, visit/ join Google e-group- Indiantreepix:http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en Sweet-Karela-seeds-4602-k.JPG 59KViewDownload Sweet-Karela-4594-k.JPG 68KViewDownload Sweet-Karela-4598-k.JPG 93KViewDownload- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - -- Usha Ganguli-Lachungpa Sr. Research Officer (WL) Dept. of Forest, Env. & WL Mgmt. Government of Sikkim Deorali, Gangtok 737102 Tel/Fax:91-3592-280402; Cell:094340-25273 [email protected] [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "indiantreepix" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
