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Family • Cucurbitaceae
Pipino
Cucumis sativus
CUCUMBER
Hu gua
Scientific names Common names Cucumis sativus Linn. Kalabaga (Bis.) Kasimun (Bon.) Maras (Sul.) Madas (Sul.) Pepino (Span., Tag.) Pipino (Tag., Ilk.) Cucumber (Engl.) Huang gua (Chin.) 
Botany
Pipino is an annual, fleshy, climbing vine. Leaves are ovate, 8 to 14 centimeters long, 5-angled or 5-lobed, the lobes or angles being pointed, and hispidious on both surfaces. Flowers are yellow and bell-shaped, axillary, solitary, stalkless or short-stalked. Male and female flowers are similar in color and size, yellow, and about 2 centimeters long. Fruit is usually cylindric, 10 to 20 centimeters long, smooth, yellow when mature, and slightly tuberculated. A variety is smaller and greenish. Seeds are numerous, oblong, compressed, and smooth.
Distribution
- Cultivated in the Philippines.
Constituents
- Fruit contains dextrose (0.11 to 0.98%); saccharose (0.05 to 0.13%); fixed oil (0.11-0.98%).
- Seed contains fixed oil (Gurken oil) 25% consisting of oleic acid (58%), linolic acid (3.7%), palmitic acid (6.8%), stearic acid (3.7%); phytine; and lecithine.
- Aerial parts contain a 14a-methyl D-phytosterol.
- Pulp yields shikimate dehydrogenase.
- Leaves contain urea and an alkaloid, hypoxanthine.
- Study yielded two new megastignmanes from the leaves of C sativus - cucumegastigmanes I and II with other known compounds.Properties
- Seeds are antihelminthic; also, cooling, diuretic, and strenghtening.
- Active ingredient of the essential oil is considered aphrodisiac in nature.
- Shikimate dehydrogenase from the pulp is considered a facial skin softener; also cooling and a natural sunscreen.
Parts used
Fruit, seeds.
Uses
Edibility / Nutritional
- Peeled raw fruit is peeled, sliced thin, served with vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper and calamansi makes a good vegetable side dish.
- Common salad ingredient; also boiled in stew dishes.
- Seed kernel is edible.
- A variety is used for making pickles.
- In Malaya, young leaves are eaten raw or steamed.
- Good source of calcium and iron, vitamins B and C.
Folkloric
- Juice of leaves used as an emetic in acute indigestion in children .
- Bruised root applied to swelling from the wound of hedgehig quill.
- Raw cucumbers used for dysentery.
- Cucumber salve used for scalds and burns.
- Seeds used as taeniacide (1 - 2 oz of seed thoroughly ground, with sugar, taken fasting, followed in 1-2 hours with a purge).
- In Indo-China, immature fruit given to children for dysentery.
- In India, used as diuretic and for throat infections. Pulp considered healing and soothing, used to keep facial skin soft; is toning and soothing on damage skin and provides a natural sunscreen.
- In Bangladesh, fruit used with cumin seeds for throat infections.
Others
- Cosmetic: rubbing fruit over skin for softness and whiteness.
- Cooling and beautifying to the skin.
- Used in the manufacture of cucumber soap.
- Cucumber scent, one of a few others, linked to female sexual arousal. sourceStudies
• Phytochemicals / C-Glycosides: Study yielded the following C-glycosides from the leaves: isovitexin 2″-O-glucoside, isovitexin, isoorientin, 4′-X-O-diglucosides of isovitexin and swertiajaponin. Flowers yielded kaempferol 3-O-rhamnoside and 3-O-glycosides of kaempferol, quercetin, isoramnetin was revealed.
• Hypoglycemic / Anti-Diabetes: (1) In Mexico, one of the edible plants with hypoglycemic activity. (2) Antihyperglycemic effect of 12 edible plants was studied in healthy rabbits. Cucumis sativus significantly decreased the area under the glucose tolerance curve and the hyperglycemic peak. Study suggests the integration of a diet that includes edible plants with hypoglycemic activity
• Anthelmintic: Ethanolic extract of C sativus exhibited a potent activity against tapeworms comparable to the effect of piperazine citrate.
• Skin Whitening : Six plants parts of C sativus were studied for its inhibitory effect on melanogenesis. Leaves and stems showed inhibition of melanin production. Of 8 compounds isolated, lutein was a potentially skin whitening component.
• Hepatoprotective / Antioxidant: Studies have isolated isovitexin and isoorientin, two C-glycosylflavones. Isoorientin has exhibited hepatoprotective effect and isovitexin, an antioxidant effect.
Availability
Small or large scale commercial production.
Last Updated August 2011
Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
Demonstration of Activity of -Galactosidase Secreted by Cucumis sativus L. Cells / J Stano et al / Acta Biotechnologica / Volume 21 Issue 1, Pages 83 - 87 / DOI 10.1002/1521-3846(200102)21:1<83::AID-ABIO83>3.0.CO;2-7
(2)
Studies on Hypoglycemic Activity of Mexican Medicinal Plants / Proc. West. Pharmacol. Soc. 45: 118-124 (2002)
(3)
The Anthelmintic Activity of Some Iraqi Plants of the Cucurbitaceae / Pharmaceutical Biology / 1987, Vol. 25, No. 3, Pages 153-157
(4)
Inhibitory Effect of Cucumis sativus on Melanin Production in Melanoma B16 Cells by Downregulation of Tyrosinase Expression / Planta Med 2008; 74: 1785-1788 / DOI: 10.1055/s-0028-1088338
(5)
Preparative separation of isovitexin and isoorientin from Patrinia villosa Juss by high-speed counter-current chromatography / Journal of Chromatography A, 1074 (2005) 111–115
(6)
Anti-hyperglycemic effect of some edible plants / R Roman-Ramos et al / Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Volume 48, Issue 1, 11 August 1995, Pages 25-32 / doi:10.1016/0378-8741(95)01279-M
(7)
Flavonoids from some species of the genus Cucumis / Miros awa Krauze-Baranowska and Wojciech Cisowski / Biochemical Systematics and Ecology, Volume 29, Issue 3, March 2001, Pages 321-324 / doi:10.1016/S0305-1978(00)00053-3
(8)
Two New Megastigmanes from the Leaves of Cucumis sativus / Hisahiro Kai, Masaki Baba, and Toru Okuyama / CHEMICAL & PHARMACEUTICAL BULLETIN, Vol. 55 (2007) , No. 1 133
