Geeta Sharma
Department of Botany, University of Jammu, Jammu-180 006
Email: geetaji@yahoo.com
Abstracts: Cucurbitaceae though known world-wide on account of having broadly grown taxa such as Cucumis sativus (cucumber), Citrullus lanatus (water melon)and Cucumis melo (melon) that are consumed on a large scale (Jeffrey 1980), it also contains some lesser known species that are rich in minerals and vitamins. Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt(syn. C. indica) and Luffa actangula (L.) Roxb.are the two such species (Kalloo and Bergh 1993;Rai et al. 2008). These provide prized vegetables, have the ability to grow in habitats that are generally inhospitable to other plants and are not taken by stray animals on account of having herbivory-deterrent compounds. Despite having potential to supplement world’s food / medicinal basket, these have remained underutilized particularly in Jammu region. Present communication describes the factors responsible for less utilization of C. grandis (syn. C. indica) and L. actangula in Jammu (Sharma and Kachroo 1981).
Keywords: Coccinia grandis, Luffa actangula, Jammu
REFERENCES
Behara TK, Sureja AK, Islam S, Munshi AD and Sidhu AS (2011). Minor cucurbits. In Genetics, Genomics and cucurbits Ed. By Chittranjan Koul. Science Publishers. Pp:17-61.
Jeffrey C (1980). A review of the cucurbitaceae. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 81: 233-247.
Kalloo G and Bergh BO (1993). Genetic improvement of vegetable crops. Pergamon Press, U.K.
Kumbualkar BB, Rajpadhey AA and Upadhye AS (2013). Standardization of family cucurbitaceae. 104 (12): 1595-1596.
Martin FW (1979). Vegetables for the hot humid tropics. Part 4. Sponge and bottle gourds, Luffa and Lagenaria. Science and Education Administration, United States Department of Agriculture, New Orleans, United States. 19 pp.
Rai M, Pandey S and Kumar S (2008). Cucurbit research in India: a retrospect. Proceedings of the IXth EUCARPIA meeting on genetics and breeding of cucurbitaceae. INRA, Avigon (France).
Shaheen SZ, Bolla K, Vasu K and Charya MAS (2009). Antimicrobial activity of the fruit extract of Coccinia indica. African Journal of Biotechnology. 8 (24): 7073-7076.
Sharma BM and Kachroo P (1981). Flora of Jammu and plants of neighbourhood. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, Dehradun.
Tamilselven N, Thirumalai T, Elumalai EK, Balaji R and David E (2011). Pharmacognosy of Coccinia grandis: a review. Asia pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine. S299-S302.
Yadav G and Mishra A (2010). Medical properties of Ivy gourd (Cephalandra indica): a review. International Journal of Pharma Research and Development (Asia Pacific journal on Tropical Biomedicine). S299-S302.