Pointed Gourd (Trichosanthes dioica)

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Trichosanthes dioica is also known as the pointed gourd, parwal (from Hindi), or potol (from Assamese, Oriya or Bengali (পটল) pôţol). Colloquially, in India, it is often called green potato. It is widely cultivated in the eastern part of India, particularly in Orissa, Bengal, Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. It is a good source of carbohydrates, vitamin A, and vitamin C. It also contains major nutrients and trace elements (magnesium, potassium, copper, sulfur, and chlorine) which are needed in small quantities, for playing essential roles in human physiology.

It is a vine plant, similar to cucumber and squash, though unlike those it is perennial. It is a dioecious (male and female plants) vine (creeper) plant with heart-shaped leaves (cordate) and is grown on a trellis. The fruits are green with white or no stripes. Size can vary from small and round to thick and long — 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm). It thrives well under a hot to moderately warm and humid climate. The plant remains dormant during the winter season and prefers a fertile, well-drained sandy loam soil due to its susceptibility to water-logging.

It is used as ingredients of soup, stew, curry, sweet, or eaten fried and as dorma with roe or meat stuffing.

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Thanks for your great Article.
Pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica Roxb., Cucurbitaceae) is a tropical vegetable crop with origin in the Indian subcontinent. It is known by the name of parwal, palwal, or parmal in different parts of India and Bangladesh and is one of the important vegetables of this region. The fruit is the edible part of the plant which is cooked in various ways either alone or in combination with other vegetables or meats. Pointed gourd is rich in vitamin and contains 9.0 mg Mg, 2.6 mg Na, 83.0 mg K, 1.1 mg Cu, and 17.0 mg S per 100 g edible part (Singh 1989). It is purported that pointed gourd possesses the medicinal property of lowering total cholesterol and blood sugar. These claims are supported by preliminary clinical trials with rats (Chandra-Sekar et al. 1988) and rabbits (Sharma and Pant 1988; Sharma et al. 1988).