Corchorus capsularis L.

It has been recently introduced in cultivation in North-Eastern parts of Pakistan as a fibre crop and is proving successful.

The plant is extensively cultivated in India and Bangla Desh as well as in other tropical countries including Pakistan for the most valueable fibre of remark-able strength, extracted from the bark by retting and called jute or golden fibre. The fibre is used for making gunny bags, ropes, carpets, rugs, rough cloth and many other similar articles of daily use. The pith, left after the fibre has been extracted, is used in the paper industry and in preparation of alcohol. An infusion of leaves is a demulcent, stomachiac, carminative, laxative, stimulant and used to increase appetite. It is also given in dysentry, fever, dyspepsia and disorders of the liver. Decoction of roots and unripe fruits is used in diarrhoea. The leaves contain glucoside capsularin which is related to corchorin and chorchoritin, extracted from seeds and used in cardiac diseases and having action similar to digitalis group of genins.

A large, glabrous, annual, up to 3 m tall (under cultivation). Leaves 3-5-costate, ovate-lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 5.5-15 cm long, 1.5-8 cm broad, acute or acuminate, coarsely serrate, basal serratures backwardly prolonged into setaceous appendages; petiole up to 5 cm long; stipules linear, 6-10 mm long. Cyme 1 or 2-flowered, axillary or antiphyllous. Flowers yellow, 8-10 mm across, pedicellate; bracts linear-ovate, 2-3 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad. Sepals linear oblong, 4-5 mm long. Petals obovate, 3-5 mm long, 2.5-3 mm broad, notched at the apex. Stamens 20-30, filaments c. 3 mm long. Carpels 5; ovary subglobose, 5-loculed, glabrous, truncate; style minute. Capsule subglobose-globose, 10-12 mm in diameter, beakless and depressed at apex, scabrous, ridged, tuberculate or muricate, 5-loculed, locules aseptate. Seeds cuneiform, c. 2 mm long, brown, glabrous.

Herbs woody, erect, 1-2 m tall. Petiole ca. 2 cm, puberulent; leaf blade ovate-lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, 5-12 × 2-5 cm, glabrous, basal veins ascending to mid leaf, lateral veins 8-10 pairs, base rounded, margin coarsely serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary or several arranged in cymes, axillary; peduncle and pedicel short. Sepals 4 or 5, 3-4 mm. Petals obovate, ± as long as sepals, glabrous. Stamens 18-22; androgynophore short, glabrous. Ovary 5-loculed, glabrous; stigma lobed. Capsule globose, obtusely angled, 5-valved, ca. 1 cm in diam., verrucose, apex truncate or slightly emarginate. Fl. summer, fr. late autumn.

Subtropical Himalaya, India. Jute, cultivated in most tropical countries.

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Srilanka (Ceylon), Bangla Desh, Burma and Malayan Peninsula.

1200 m

Fl.Per.: September-October.

Widely cultivated. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka].