Momordica charantiaL.

Bitter Melon

WFO wfo-0000376916 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Momordica charantia, photographed by Fernando Sessegolo
fig. a Fernando Sessegolo, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-31 / obs. 204084148
Momordica charantia, photographed by Don Loarie
fig. b Don Loarie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203742141
Momordica charantia, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. c Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198472312
Momordica charantia, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. d Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198463981
Momordica charantia, photographed by James Rogers
fig. e James Rogers, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190612945
Momordica charantia, photographed by Tom Lazar
fig. f Tom Lazar, CC0 1.0 / obs. 199231081
Momordica charantia, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. g Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193388136
Momordica charantia, photographed by Jon Sullivan
fig. h Jon Sullivan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200386337

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,981 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 1,981 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 22 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cucumis argyi H.Lév.
  • Cucumis intermedius M.Roem.
  • Momordica anthelmintica Schumach. & Thonn.
  • Momordica charantia f. abbreviata (Ser.) W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes
  • Momordica charantia subsp. abbreviata (Ser.) Greb.
  • Momordica charantia var. abbreviata Ser.
  • Momordica charantia var. longirostrata Cogn.
  • Momordica charantia var. muricata (Willd.) Chakrav.
  • Momordica charantia var. pseudobalsamina Griseb.
  • Momordica charantia var. zeylanica Hitchc.
  • Momordica chinensis hort.
  • Momordica elegans Salisb.
  • Momordica indica L.
  • Momordica jagorana K.Koch
  • Momordica muricata Willd.
  • Momordica papillosa Peckolt ex Rosenth.
  • Momordica roxburghiana G.Don
  • Momordica senegalensis Lam.
  • Momordica sinensis hort.
  • Momordica thollonii Cogn.
  • Momordica zeylanica Mill.
  • Sicyos fauriei H.Lév.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.