Number of Carpels in Luffa's Ovary

Background Introduction

Recently, many people have raised questions about the number of locules in the bottle gourd. Is it 3 or 4? It is said that companies now manually select bottle gourds with 4 locules, because if one is found to be problematic, it may result in a fine of up to 2 million yuan or even imprisonment. The pharmacopoeia clearly specifies 3 locules, but there are quite a few popular varieties of bottle gourd in the market with 4 locules, and even 5 locules can be found.

Reason for the Problem

This phenomenon is not surprising. The reasons are as follows: 1. Sponge gourd belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae, and the fruits of this family of plants have the characteristic of having three parietal placentae. The appearance of 3 locules in sponge gourd and other cucurbit plants is due to the extension of the placenta within the ovary. Strictly speaking, this is a pseudotrilocular condition and is therefore unstable, often resulting in the occurrence of 4 or 5 locules. The description of the Cucurbitaceae family in Flora of China also mentions the occurrence of pseudotetracerous to pseudopentacerous conditions in normal situations. 2. Sponge gourd may be an introduced variety that began to be cultivated in China in the early stages. The characteristic of cultivated varieties is morphological instability and easy occurrence of variations, so the occurrence of 2 or more locules should be considered normal. 3. In the Flora of China, there is no specific mention of the number of locules in the species of sponge gourd. One possible reason is that the complexity of the ovary has already been described in the morphological description of the family, so it is not repeated in the description of the species. In addition, the drafters of the Flora of China may have observed a large variation in the number of locules in sponge gourds and considered such a description to be meaningless in taxonomy, so it was not described.

The evidence supports this.

The description of each plant is based on a thorough observation of multiple specimens. Experts are invited to explore the Bozhou market to find out. It was found that at least two out of ten sponge gourd vines are tetramerous, and there are even a few pentamerous cases. This may no longer insist on writing trimerous.

Conclusion

There is a certain variation in the number of carpel chambers in sponge gourd, which may be due to the characteristics of the gourd family plants and the instability of sponge gourd as a cultivated variety. In response to this issue, it is recommended to further study and revise the relevant standards to more accurately describe the number of carpel chambers in sponge gourd.