Abelmoschus manihot
The size of the plant and of its bag can vary a little from the photograph — each one grows at its own pace. We keep them as consistent as we can.
Bag · AibikaOverview
The spinach of the Pacific: in Papua New Guinea and in Fiji, bele is the everyday leafy green, cut from the same plant for years on end. It's a shrub in the hibiscus family that reaches 5 meters, with large tender leaves and yellow, purple-throated flowers like those of its relative okra. For anyone who wants fresh greens without sowing again every month, it's hard to beat: cut the shoot, it regrows, and on it goes.
Culture
- Habit
- Shrub
- Height
- 5.00 m
- Growth Rate
- Fast
- Pollinators
- Insects
- Cultivation Status
- Cultivated, Ornamental, Wild
A plant of the warm lowlands: it yields best below 500 meters, with rain spread through the year, from 1,000 mm upward. It wants full sun and fertile soil, rich in organic matter and well drained. The easy way to multiply it is a cutting of soft stem, which roots without any tricks; from seed it germinates in about two weeks. Cut the shoots when they are around 15 cm long and the plant answers by branching.
Edible Uses
The leaves and tender shoots are eaten raw in salad or cooked like spinach, and they thicken a broth slightly. The flower buds are edible too. It is one of the most nourishing leaves in the tropics, which is why it carries the daily diet of much of the Pacific.
Medicinal
In its home region the bark is applied to wounds, root juice is used for sprains, and the juice of the flowers for bronchitis and toothache.
Traditional uses for information only. Not a substitute for advice from a health professional.
Agroforestry
A secondary species of the low to medium stratum, one of those that puts food on the table in a new system's first months while the trees are still small. It grows fast, takes repeated cutting, and every pruning leaves foliage on the ground. Since it roots from cuttings, one plant is enough to fill a row. Plant 1–2 m apart.