LAGENARIA SICERARIA (Mol.

) Standley UPO

Cucurbita siceraria Molina

Cucurbita lagenaria Linn
Cucurbita lagenaria-oblonga Blanco
Cucurbita lagenaria-villosa Blanco
Cucurbita leucantha Duch.
Lagenaria vulgaris Seringe
Lagenaria leucantha (Duch.) Rusby

Local names: Buliangin (Sub.); kalubai (Bis.); labu (Sul.); opo (Tag.); sikai
(Bis.); tabuñgau (Bon., Ilk.); upo (Tag.); gourd, bottle gourd, white pumpkin
(Engl.).

Upo is cultivated throughout the Philippines and is naturalized in some

parts of Mindanao. It is pantropic in cultivation.

This vegetable is a rather coarse vine reaching a length of several meters.

The leaves are somewhat rounded, 10 to 40 centimeters wide, softly hairy on
both surfaces, and more or less 5-angled or lobed. The flowers are white, large,
solitary, and monoecious or dioecious. The petals are ovate and 3 to 4
centimeters long. The calyx is hairy, with a funnel-shaped tube. The fruit is green,
mottled with gray or white, in the commonest form club-shaped, up to 80
centimeters long, and 15 centimeters across, but in other forms, it is ovoid to
depressed-globose and nearly as thick as it is long.

Upo is one of the commonest vegetables raised in the Philippines. The

fresh is white and soft. It is boiled and seasoned or used in stews or with fish.
Dalziel reports that in West Tropical Africa the young shoots and leaves are used
as a vegetable. The dry shell of the fruit in its various forms is used for domestic
utensils, bowls, bottles, floats, pipes, blowing horns, musical instruments, etc. the
shell of half the fruit is made into a hat. Analyses of the fruit show that it is a good
source of iron, calcium, and phosphorus. According to Hermano and Sepulveda it
is also a good source of vitamin B.

Wehmer records that the fruit contains sugar 6 per cent, and the seeds,
fixed oil. Greshoff sorts the presence of saponin in the seeds.

The fruit is official in Portuguese (3) and Spanish (2-4) Pharmacopieas;

and the seeds are included in the French (1-4) and Swedish (1-4)
Pharmacopieas.

Guerrero reports that in Gold Coast, the young shoots and leaves are
used medicinally for enema.
 The pulp is occasionally employed as an adjunct to purgatives and is also
used as ingredient in various confections; it is useful in coughs, and as an
altitude to certain poisons. Externally the pulp is applied as a poultice and cooling
application to the shaved head in delirium, and to the soles in burning of the feet.

The seeds yield clear, limpid oil, which is used as an emollient application
to the head and as a means of relieving headache. This oil is also administered
internally. Greshoof says that the seeds are used as an anthelmintic.