Hu Lu Ke

Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl. (Cucurbitaceae), the bottle gourd or calabash, is the source of Hu Lu Ke, the dried outer rind of the mature fruit. The plant is a vigorous annual climbing or trailing vine extending 3-9 m, with soft-hairy angular stems and branched tendrils. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to reniform, 10-25 cm wide, shallowly 3-7 lobed, with dentate margins, an obtuse to cordate base, and a softly pubescent surface. Flowers are large, solitary, monoecious, with five white, broadly obovate corolla lobes 3-5 cm long that open in the evening and wilt by morning. The fruit is highly variable in shape — bottle, dipper, club, or globose — 10-100 cm long, with a smooth green rind ripening to a hard, lightweight, woody, pale yellow-brown pericarp; mature seeds are flattened and obconical. Cultivated worldwide and one of humanity's oldest domesticated plants. In TCM, the dried rind (Hu Lu Ke) and the entire dried fruit promote urination, reduce edema, and treat jaundice and ascites.