Species
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Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built. Not a statement that none exist.

Momordica cabrae (Cogn.) C.Jeffrey

bojajenga, diwokosso, iliki i waholo, inaolo a soowa

Climate known Photographs not checked Bulb, tuber or caudex
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

About the genus · Momordica

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.

Text from Wikipedia, “Momordica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Cucurbitaceae
Described by
(Cogn.) C.Jeffrey
Native to
Benin, Ghana, Guinea +10
Wild records
78 in range· 78 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Feb, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1645mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 205 mm (CHELSA)
Light
25–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Momordica, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, March to June and September to November at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.1 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1645 mm a year, wettest October at 205 mm, driest January at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 15.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Dimorphochlamys cabrae Cogn.; Dimorphochlamys cabrae Cogn. ex DeWild. & T.Durand; Dimorphochlamys crepiniana Cogn.; Dimorphochlamys glomerata Cogn.; Dimorphochlamys mannii Hook.fil.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Momordica, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, March to June and September to November at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.1 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1225 mm of 1645 mm) falls in March to June and September to November. The temperature curve is flat, 2.1 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1645 mm a year, wettest October at 205 mm, driest January at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1645 mm a year at the habitat, 1225 mm of it March to June and September to November. Wettest month October at 205 mm, driest January at 32 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1279 mm to 2705 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 21, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 15.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 15.9 °C, the absolute minimum 13.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.4 °C in July (across the envelope cells 18.3 °C to 23.0 °C), warmest day 30.9 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 15.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 65 to 70% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 27 °C in Jul to 31 °C in Feb; mean night from 21 °C in Jul to 23 °C in Apr. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1645 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 75 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 13.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°35.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)13.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 25–34RH 65–70 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 75 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C30 / 28–3331 / 28–3430 / 29–3330 / 29–3229 / 28–3128 / 27–3027 / 26–2927 / 26–2928 / 26–2928 / 27–3029 / 27–3129 / 28–32
Night °C22 / 19–2423 / 20–2523 / 21–2523 / 21–2523 / 21–2522 / 19–2421 / 18–2322 / 19–2322 / 19–2322 / 20–2422 / 20–2422 / 19–24
Rain mm32 / 11–18371 / 30–180135 / 74–251173 / 122–256190 / 112–294200 / 9–306134 / 6–276125 / 14–357187 / 64–366205 / 118–417135 / 43–36858 / 14–237
DLI33 / 29–3634 / 31–3734 / 31–3733 / 29–3730 / 26–3327 / 23–3125 / 22–3025 / 21–3127 / 22–3230 / 25–3330 / 27–3431 / 28–34
RH %65 / 52–7065 / 56–7067 / 61–7069 / 63–7170 / 64–7269 / 65–7268 / 64–7369 / 64–7369 / 66–7370 / 66–7369 / 64–7267 / 59–71

Each figure is the median across the 75 grid cells holding the 77 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1676:3444 (6.175, -7.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 13.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 15.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 75 distinct grid cells holding the 77 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1676:3444 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 6.00_-7.500, lapse-corrected +11 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 219 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeBenin, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Cabinda, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Zaïre
Kew's description“climbing annual” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker7.567, -8.633 · in the densest population, 29 records (37% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 78 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 78 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Momordica cabrae, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Momordica cabrae (Cogn.) C. Jeffrey
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2026) · DiSSCo
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Nutritional and Anti-nutritional Evaluation of Cakes and Almond Flours of Momordica cabrae Consumed in the Center-West Côte d’Ivoire
Oupoh Bada Bedos, Tchumou Messou, N’gbo Martin Luthère King, Tano Kablan (2023) · American Journal of Food and Nutrition

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Momordica 50 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answerapi.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 13 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.