Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Balsam Apple

Momordica

Also called Bitter Melon, Cundeamor

Balsam Apple
Photo: David Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0

Momordica is a genus of about 60 climbing vines from tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Australia, with the bitter melon (Momordica charantia) the best-known member grown for its fruit. Grow the commonly cultivated species in warm, sunny conditions on a support so the vines can climb.

Family
Cucurbitaceae (Gourd family)
Grows as
Climber, Annual, Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Keep soil evenly moist during growth and water at the base to reduce leaf disease.
Soil
Fertile, well-drained soil or a rich potting mix.
Temperature
20–35 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy

About

Momordica is a genus of about 60 species of annual or perennial climbers herbaceous or rarely small shrubs belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, native of tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia and Australia. Most species produce floral oils and are visited by specialist pollinators in the apid tribe Ctenoplectrini. A molecular phylogeny that includes all species is available (Schaefer and Renner, 2010).

How to grow it

Some Momordica species are grown in cultivation for their fleshy fruit, which are oblong to cylindrical in shape, orange to red in colour, prickly or warted externally, and in some species burst when ripe, generally with elastic force, into irregular valves.

Momordica can be cultivated in 5 litre vases or jardinière and is hardly susceptible to plagues. After seeding, Momordica develops leaves in about 11 days and flowers after 40 to 50 days. After fertilisation, the Momordica fruit will be developed in about 10 days.

Other Momordica plants

Southern balsampear · Balsampear · Gac · Balsampear

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Momordica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…