Crescentia cujete L.

യാചകി

Family : BIGNONIACEAE

Synonym : Crescentia acuminata Kunth

Common Names : Thiruvattakkai, Beggers bowl, Calabash Tree, Krabasi, Kalebas, Huingo

Flowering Period : Throughout the year

Distribution : Native of South America

Habitat : Grown in gardens

Uses : The young fruit is occasionally pickled. The seed can be eaten when cooked. A syrup and a popular confection called 'carabobo' is made from the seed. The fruit is abortifacient, emetic, emmenagogue, purgative and vermifuge. A syrup made from the pulp of the fruit is a popular remedy for colds. The juice of the fruit is used to treat diarrhoea, pneumonia and intestinal irregularity. It is made into a strong tea and drunk to procure an abortion, to ease childbirth, and is used in a mix to relieve severe menstrual pains by eliminating blood clots. The whole plant is used as a diuretic against hydropsy and diarrhoea. The most general use of the shells is for making drinking vessels, but the larger ones serve to store all sorts of articles.

Key Characters :

Small trees up to 8 m high. Leaves in scattered fascicle; leaflets 5-15 x 1.5-4 cm obspathulate, acute or obtuse at apex, cuneate at base. Flowers solitary or in pairs, borne on main trunk or mature branches. Calyx 2-lobed to the base. Corolla bell-shaped, 5-8 cm long, yellow, white or pale green with purplish or brown markings; lobes 5, unequal. Stamens 4, didynamous, 5th one rudimentary; sitgma bilamellate. Fruits broadly ellipsoid to globular, smooth, greenish yellow or black, 12-30 cm in across; seeds many, embed in the pulp.