Okra

Description

Common Name: Okra, Lady’s fingers
Scientific Name: Abelmoschus esclentus
Family Name: Malvaceae

Edible Uses :

• Immature fruit – cooked on their own or added to soups
• Seed – cooked or ground into a meal and used in making bread or made into ‘tofu’ or ‘tempeh’
• The roasted seed is a coffee substitute.
• The seed contains up to 22% of an edible oil
• The leaves, flower buds, flowers and calyces can be eaten cooked as greens
• The leaves can be dried, crushed into a powder and stored for later use as a flavoring.
• Root – it is edible but very fibrous

Medicinal Uses :

• The roots are very rich in mucilage, having a strongly demulcent action. This mucilage can be used as a plasma replacement.
• An infusion of the roots is used in the treatment of syphilis.
• The juice of the roots is used externally in Nepal to treat cuts, wounds and boils.
• The leaves furnish an emollient poultice sudorific or antiscorbutic and to treat dysuria.
• A decoction of the immature fruits is demulcent, diuretic and emollient. It is used in the treatment of catarrhal infections, ardor urinae, dysuria and gonorrhoea.
• The fruit is crushed with the young leaves and then used to wash the hair and to treat dandruff.
• The seeds are antispasmodic, cordial and stimulant. An infusion of the roasted seeds has sudorific properties.
• An infusion of the flowers is used to treat phlegm in the mucous membranes of the chest

Reference :- http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Abelmoschus+esculentus