Local Name(s)
Oloqiloqota (Konsogna), Jute, Bush Okra, Jew's Mallow (Engl.)
General description
An
erect woody herb, usually 0.5 to 1.2m high but may reach up to 2.5 m in
cultivation. Leaves are to 15cm long, short stalked, ovate to elliptic, margin
serrated. Leaf blade usually with basal protrusions. Flowers are yellow and the
fruits are short-stalked, cylindrical capsule that splits into 5 parts. Seeds
greyish black, angled.
Edible part(s),
preparation methods and palatability
The
leaves are edible. Women and children collect the plant’s leaves, which are
boiled in water like cabbage and eaten together with other foodstuff or on its
own just with some additional salt. It is said to be a widely spread edible
vegetable all over Africa. The plant is available during the rainy season and
some time afterwards.
In
Kenya this plant is widely used as vegetable and even marketed in Nairobi and
many other market centres throughout the country.
Nutritional value
Research
in the Kingdom of Swaziland in the mid 1980s (Ogole and Grivetti; 1985)
revealed that chorchorus species have high iron contents: Leaves have
42.7mg/100mg of fresh weight. Additionally, leaves are rich in vitamin A.
Agroecology
Grows
in northern Australia north to China and west through India and Pakistan to the
Middle East and in most of Africa. Also naturalized in tropical America. Grows
in seasonally flooded areas, flood plains, at edges of lakes, dams and marshes
and in bushland, wooded grassland and open grassland, especially in low hot
country, sea level to 1,500m in alluvial soils and sandy loam.
Propagation
Method(s)
Propagates by seeds.
Sample location
(s)
