Abstract
Momordica dioica is a perennial, dioecious, cucurbitaceous climbing creeper (commonly known as kakrol, spiny gourd or teasle gourd). It is native to Asia with extensive distribution in India and Bangladesh. It is used not only as preventive and curative agent for various diseases but also as vegetable with a significant nutritional value over thousands of years. This review aims to take an attempt to evaluate the phytochemical, ethnobotanical, phytotherapeutical and pharmacological properties of kakrol according to the view of traditional medicinal plant based treatment including ayurveda along with recent scientific observations. Kakrol is considered as an underutilized vegetable, although having significant presence of certain compounds containing higher nutritional value than many frequently consumed vegetables. Moreover, as a traditional medicinal plant, it is still potential for its phytochemical components that increase the demand of further extensive evaluation to justify its other therapeutical roles. Therefore, this effort will be helpful to researchers who interested to disclose the unjustified phytotherapeutical role of Momordica dioica.
Highlights
Momordica dioica Roxb. is a perennial, dioecious (2n = 28) climber included in Cucurbitaceae family (Figure 1)
Its cultivation up to an altitude of 1500 meters in Assam and Garo hills of Meghalaya is reported [6]. It is commonly known as spine gourd, teasel gourd or small bitter gourd worldwide whereas in Bangladesh it is known as kakrol and in India as kankro, kartoli, kantoli, kantola, kantroli, ban karola, or janglee karela [7,8,9,10]
Mishra et al reported the role of Momordica dioica seed oil as insecticide and found satisfactory level of natural insecticidal activity up to 100% mortality at 4% conc. in 24 hours
Summary
According to the latest revision of Indian Momordica, there are six well identified species of which four are dioecious and two are monoecious [3] This genus is originated from IndoMalayan region, it is found to grow in India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Myanmar, China, Japan, South East Asia, Polynesia, Tropical Africa, and South America [4, 5]. Its cultivation up to an altitude of 1500 meters in Assam and Garo hills of Meghalaya is reported [6] It is commonly known as spine gourd, teasel gourd or small bitter gourd worldwide whereas in Bangladesh it is known as kakrol and in India as kankro, kartoli, kantoli, kantola, kantroli, ban karola, or janglee karela [7,8,9,10]. Kakrol is about 5–7 meters in length, a popular summer vegetable of which its fruit, young twigs and leaves are used as vegetable [11,12,13]
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