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Trichosanthes cucumerina
Also called Club gourd, Long tomato, Snake gourd, Annual Gourd
Snakegourd is a tropical annual climbing vine grown for its very long fruit, eaten young as a vegetable and the mature red pulp used as a tomato substitute. Give it a warm, sunny site with a trellis or support, as it climbs by tendrils.
Trichosanthes cucumerina, also called as Pudalangai (புடலங்காய்) is a tropical or subtropical vine. Its variety T. cucumerina var. anguina raised for its strikingly long fruit. In Asia, it is eaten immature as a vegetable much like the summer squash and in Africa, the reddish pulp of mature snake gourd is used as an economical substitute for tomato. Common names for the cultivated variety include snake gourd, serpent gourd, chichinda padwal, Podalanga and Snake Tomato.
Trichosanthes cucumerina is found in the wild across much of South and Southeast Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar(Burma) and southern China (Guangxi and Yunnan). It is also regarded as native in northern Australia. and naturalized in Florida, parts of Africa and on various islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The fruit can be induced to grow straight by tying a weight to the end.
Pointed gourd · Chinese Cucumber · Snake Gourd · Snake Gourds
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Trichosanthes cucumerina 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
