2. The okra plant or its pods.
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
Gumbo
Encyclopedia Britannica
GUMBO, or Okra, termed also Okro, Ochro, Ketmia, Gubbo, and Syrian Mallow (Sanskrit, Tindisa; Bengali, Dheras ; Persian, Bamiyah — the Bammia of Prosper Alpinus; French, Gombaut, or better Combo, and Ketmie comestible), Hibiscus esculentus, L. (fl. longifolius, Roxb.; Abelmoschus esculentus, Guill. aud Perr.), an herbaceous hairy annual plant of the natural order Malvaceae, a native of the Old World, and now naturalized or cultivated in all tropical countries. The leaves are cordate, and 3 to 5- lobed, and the flowers yellow, with a crimson centre; the ovary is 5-celled, and the fruit or pod, the Bendi-Kai of the Europeans of southern Iudia, is a tapering, 10-angled, loculicidal capsule, 4 to 10 inches in length, except in the dwarf varieties of the plant, and contains numerous oval dark-coloured seeds, hairy at the base. Three distinct varieties of the gumbo (Quiabo and Quimgombo) in Brazil have been described by Pacheco. The unripe fruit is eaten either pickled, or prepared like asparagus. It is also an ingredient in various dishes, e.g., the gumbo of the Southern United States, and the calαlou of Jamaica; and on account of the large amount of mucilage it contains, it is extensively consumed, both fresh and in the form of the prepared powder, for the thickening of broths and soups. For winter use it is salted, or sliced and dried. The fruit is grown on a very large scale in the vicinity of Constantinople. It was one of the esculents of Egypt in the time of Abul-Abbas el-Nebâti, who journeyed to Alexandria in 1216 (Wüstenfeld, Gesch. d. Arab. Aerzte, p. 118, Gött., 1840), and, according to Popp, is still cultivated by the Egyptians, who called it Bammgé....
The seeds of the gumbo are used as a substitute for coffee. From their demulcent and emollient properties, the leaves and immature fruit have long been in repute in the East for the preparation of poultices and fomentations. Alpinus (1592) mentions the employment of their decoction in Egypt in ophthalmia, and in uterine and other complaints. In the Pharmacopoeia of India the decoction of the fruit is recommended in catarrh, and in diseases of the genitourinary tract, and its hot vapour in affections of the throat and fauces.
The Musk Okra (Sanskrit, Latâkasturikd, cf. the Greek κάστωρ ; Bengali, Latdkasturi; German, Bisamkörnerstra/uch ; French, Ketmie musquée), Hibiscus Abelmoschus, L. {Abelmoschus moschatus, Mch.), indigenous to India, and, it is said, to Guiana and Central America, and cultivated in most warm regions of the globe, is a suffruticose plant, bearing a conical 5-ridged pod about 3 inches in length, within which are numerous brown reniform seeds, smaller than those of H. esculentus. The seeds possess a musky odour, due to an oleo-resin present in the integument, and are known to perfumers under the name of arnbretie as a substitute for musk, instead of which drag it has been proposed to employ them medicinally. They are stated to be used by the Arabs for scenting coffee. 1 n India they are employed for perfuming medicinal oils, and being regarded as tonic and carminative form part of sundry pharmaceutical preparations. The seeds (in the Fantee language, Incroma-hom), as we learn from Mr E. Μ. Holmes, are used in Africa as beads; and powdered and steeped in rum they are valued in the West Indies as a remedy for snake-bites. The plant yields an excellent fibre, and, being rich in mucilage, is employed in Upper India for the clarifying of sugar. The best-perfumed seeds are reported to come from Martinique.
See P. Alpinus, De Plantis Aegypti, cap. xxvii. p. 38, Ven., 1592; Macfadyen, The Flora of Jamaica, p. 67, 1837; J. Sontheirner’s Abd Allah ibn Ahmad, <fcc., i p. 118, Stuttg,, 1840-42; P. P. Pacheco, “La Ketmie Potagère ou Comestible," La Belgique Horticole, iv. p. 63,1853; Della Sudda, “De ΓEmploi à Constantinople de la Racine de l’Hibiscus esculentus,” Répert. de Pharm., Jan. 1860, p, 229; Bentham and Hooker, Gen. Plant., i. pp. 207, 208, 1862; Grisebach, Flora of the Brit. West Ind. Is., p. 84,1864; E. J. waring, Pharm. of India, p. 35, 1868; O. Popp, “Ueber die Aschenbestanjltheile der Samen von Acacia nilotica und Hibiscus esculentus in Aegypten,” Arch, der Pharm., cxcv. p. 140,1871; Hooker, Flora of Brit. India, i. pp. 342, 343, 1872; Drury, The Usef ul Plants of India, pp. 1, 2. 2d edit., 1873; U. C. Dutt, The Mat. Med. of the Hindus, pp. 123, 321,1877; and Lanessan, Hist, des Drogues, i. pp. 181-184,1878.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 11, p. 276
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[767 words — estimated reading time: 5 minutes]
A small suppurting inflamed spot on the gum.
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