Species
+

Momordica charantia L.

Balsam Pear, Balsam-pear, Balsampear, Batata di Djuku

Climate known 82 photographs 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.

Summary

Momordica charantia is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean for its edible fruit. Its many varieties differ substantially in the shape and bitterness of the fruit.

Text from Wikipedia, “Momordica charantia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

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
L.
Native to
Cape Verde, Benin, Burkina +64
Wild records
316 in range· 162 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Mar, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1154mm/yr
11 wet months · peak Sep 152 mm (CHELSA)
Light
28–36DLI
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, April to July and September to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.5 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1154 mm a year, wettest September at 152 mm, driest January at 24 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.8 °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 Melothria pendula Sieber; Melothria pendula Sieber ex Cogn.; Momordica charantia var. muricata Griseb., 1860; Momordica muricata DC.; Momordica sinensis Spreng.

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, April to July and September to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.5 °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 (808 mm of 1154 mm) falls in April to July and September to October. The temperature curve is flat, 2.5 °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 1154 mm a year, wettest September at 152 mm, driest January at 24 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1154 mm a year at the habitat, 808 mm of it April to July and September to October. Wettest month September at 152 mm, driest January at 24 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 842 mm to 2604 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: 28 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 36 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 23, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

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 16.8 °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 16.8 °C, the absolute minimum 16.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.2 °C in December (across the envelope cells 14.6 °C to 24.5 °C), warmest day 30.4 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.8 °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: 61 to 65% 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 28 °C in Aug to 30 °C in Mar; mean night from 21 °C in Dec to 24 °C in May. The cold quarter, Nov to Jan, is the three months around the coldest night. 1154 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 257 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 16.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.8 °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°25.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)16.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 28–36RH 61–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 257 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 °C29 / 25–3330 / 26–3530 / 26–3530 / 25–3630 / 23–3529 / 21–3328 / 21–3128 / 22–3129 / 24–3129 / 25–3129 / 25–3229 / 25–33
Night °C21 / 14–2522 / 16–2523 / 18–2523 / 18–2624 / 15–2623 / 13–2622 / 12–2522 / 13–2522 / 15–2522 / 17–2422 / 17–2521 / 15–25
Rain mm24 / 4–30733 / 6–30983 / 15–258110 / 18–222149 / 15–251151 / 13–293128 / 14–359108 / 18–359152 / 28–304118 / 39–25269 / 11–24029 / 5–272
DLI34 / 29–4036 / 32–3936 / 32–4235 / 29–4433 / 26–4330 / 23–3528 / 23–3428 / 24–3531 / 27–3932 / 28–4232 / 28–4232 / 27–41
RH %61 / 50–6861 / 49–6862 / 49–6862 / 52–6863 / 54–6965 / 55–7065 / 55–7065 / 55–7165 / 56–7064 / 57–6962 / 53–6962 / 51–68

Each figure is the median across the 257 grid cells holding the 303 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 1499:3128 (15.025, -23.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 16.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.8 °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 257 distinct grid cells holding the 303 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1499:3128 (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 15.00_-23.750, lapse-corrected +457 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 482 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.
NativeCape Verde, Benin, Burkina, Gambia, The, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Rwanda, Zaïre, Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Provinces, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Christmas I., New Guinea, Solomon Is., Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Society Is.· introduced: Canary Is., Ascension, Comoros, Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, China South-Central, China Southeast, Korea, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Nicobar Is., Niue, New Caledonia, Samoa, Cook Is., Marquesas, Caroline Is., Marianas, Hawaii, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Costa Rica, C. American Pacific Is., El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Aruba, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Turks-Caicos Is., Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Galápagos, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay
Extinct inSocotra· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“climbing annual” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker6.907, 2.165 · in the densest population, 66 records (21% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 316 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 162 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 1542 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 13 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 316 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Momordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantiaMomordica charantia

Photographs: (c) John P Friel, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0 (5).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

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

Indian Herbs and Herbal Drugs Used for the Treatment of Diabetes
Manisha Modak, Priyanjali Dixit, Jayant Londhe, Saroj Ghaskadbi (2007) · Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition
Systematic Review of Herbs and Dietary Supplements for Glycemic Control in Diabetes
Gloria Y. Yeh, David M. Eisenberg, Ted J. Kaptchuk, Russell S. Phillips (2003) · Diabetes Care
An overview on antidiabetic medicinal plants having insulin mimetic property
DK Patel, SK Prasad, R Kumar, S Hemalatha (2012) · Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine
Pharmacological actions and potential uses of Momordica charantia: a review
J.K Grover, Savita Yadav (2004) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Antidiabetic Agents from Medicinal Plants
Mankil Jung, Moonsoo Park, Hyun Lee, Yoon‐Ho Kang (2006) · Current Medicinal Chemistry
Antidiabetic effects of Momordica charantia (bitter melon) and its medicinal potency
Baby Joseph, D. Jini (2013) · Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease
Ethnomedicines used in Trinidad and Tobago for urinary problems and diabetes mellitus
Cheryl Lans (2006) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Bitter melon (Momordica charantia): A review of efficacy and safety
Ethan Basch, Steven Gabardi, Catherine Ulbricht (2003) · American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy
Recent Advances in Momordica charantia: Functional Components and Biological Activities
Shuo Jia, Mingyue Shen, Fan Zhang, Jianhua Xie (2017) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences

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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
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 answered
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 170 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.