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HS1371

Malabar spinach (Basella spp.) is a nutritious vegetable in the family Basellaceae. It is native to tropical South Asia, including the Indian subcontinent and New Guinea. It was probably naturalized in China, tropical Africa, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Fiji, French Polynesia, and the West Indies (Fisher et al. 2010, Baksh-Comeau et al. 2016). This species can be found in tropical regions of Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia today (Deshmukh and Gaikwad 2014). Malabar spinach goes by many names, including Indian spinach, Ceylon spinach, vine spinach, and climbing spinach. In Mandarin Chinese, Malabar spinach is called “Muercai” or “Luokui” (Deshmukh and Gaikwad 2014, Singh et al. 2018). Malabar spinach has long been established in cultivation in China and India. This spinach is a potential cash crop to Florida, being grown currently only for niche markets. However, Florida’s suitable climate coupled with Malabar spinach’s great taste and nutritional quality suggest that this crop has great potential for commercial production (Parkell et al. 2016, Stephens 2018).

1. This document is HS1371, one of a series of the Horticultural Sciences Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Original publication date September 2020. Revised January 2024. Visit the EDIS website at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu for the currently supported version of this publication.

2. Yuheng Qiu, OPS Technical, M.S., and Guodong Liu, associate professor, Horticultural Sciences Department, UF/IFAS Extension, Gainesville, FL 32611.