Roselle (gongura)
Hibiscus sabdariffa
Malvaceae
Tropical Africa; long naturalised across India, where the leaf varieties are grown as a vegetable
13.0000° N, 30.0000° E · Sudan and the Sahel
16.5000° N, 80.0000° E · Andhra and Telangana, India
A woody-based annual shrub, 1–2 m tall, with lobed leaves and pale yellow hibiscus flowers that leave behind a fleshy red calyx. Around the world the calyx is dried for a red, sour tea. In Telugu country it is the *leaf* that matters: sour, slightly slimy when cooked, and the soul of gongura pachadi. Two kinds are sold — green-stemmed (milder) and red-stemmed (sourer, deeper coloured), both called gongura.
A note on names: the leaf greens sold as gongura come from two related species. The ICMR-NIN Food Composition Tables list "Gogu leaves" under *Hibiscus cannabinus* (kenaf); many botanical and culinary sources name *H. sabdariffa* (roselle). Both are eaten the same way. We keep *H. sabdariffa* as the plant record and note the overlap here.
How it grows
Gongura likes heat and sun and is sown with the monsoon (June–July) in Telangana, or in February for a summer crop under irrigation. Seed is broadcast in beds; leaves are ready to pick at 40–50 days and the plant is picked repeatedly for two to three months. It tolerates poor soil and some drought but gives tender leaves only with regular water. Left to grow, the plant flowers in short days (October–November) and produces the calyces and seed.
Grow at home
1. Any sunny bed or a 30 cm pot. Sow seed 1 cm deep, 20 cm apart, from March to July.
2. Water every two days in summer; the leaf goes tough and bitter if the plant dries out.
3. Start picking the top leaves at six weeks. Picking makes it bush out.
4. Let one plant flower and dry on the stem for next year's seed.
5. Leaves keep two days in a cloth in the fridge; pachadi keeps a week.
Harvest
Pick young leaves and tender tips by hand in the morning, before the sun wilts them. Strip the leaves from stems the same day — stems are fibrous — and wash three times, because the crinkled leaf holds grit. Dry the leaves fully on a cloth before cooking or pickling; surface water is what spoils a pickle. For seed, leave a few plants to flower and pick the dry calyces in December.
Lore
Gongura is called the "Andhra matha" — the mother of Andhra — in family talk, and a Telugu meal away from home is measured by whether there is gongura pachadi on the plate. Elders in Telangana treat it as a cooling summer green and a stimulant of appetite when the heat kills hunger; the sour leaf is traditionally said to help "cut" oily food. These are household traditions and the plant's regional identity, not clinical claims — see the Thrive entry for what has actually been studied, and note that the studies are on the calyx tea, not the leaf.