ABSTRACT
Cucurbits form an important and a big group of vegetable crops cultivated extensively in this country. Ash gourd belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. The winter melon, also called white gourd, ash gourd, or “fuzzy melon”, is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. Coccinia is a genus, in the family Cucurbitaceae that has nearly 30 speices confined to tropical Africa except Coccinia grandis, which extends throughout the tropics. Bitter gourd or balsam pear or karela is popular vegetable from cucurbitaceae family. Main phenolic constituents in the water and ethanolic extracts of bitter gourd seeds were catechin, gallic acid, gentisic acid, chlorogenic acid, and epicatechin. The pharmacological studies done using rat models indicated that the anti-diabetic effect of ivy gourd leaf extract could partly be due to the repression of the key gluconeogenic enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase. The ridge gourd has prominent ridges on the surface and spong gourd has a smooth surface.
