Jute

A common annual in waste lands from sea level to 2000 m, in plains and hills, throughout Pakistan.

A coarse fibre is occasionally extracted from this plant in parts of India which is of no commercial value. The roots and leaves are said to cure gonorrhoea and used in making an injection for urethral discharge. The seeds are stomachiac and used in pneumonia.

Erect or spreading, (10-) 20-60 cm tall, much branched, annual herb. Stem and branches purple, pilose. Leaves 3-5-costate, costae hairy to almost glabrous, lanceolate to ovate, 2-9.5 cm long, 1-5 cm broad, oblique or obtuse at the base, serrate, basal serratures prolonged into setaceous appendages or not, glabrous except the hairy to glabrescent costae, acute; petiole 0.5-3(-4) cm long, purple, pilose; stipules setaceous, 5-7 mm long, pilose, purplish green. Cyme antiphyllous, very shortly pedunculate, mostly 2, rarely 3-flowered. Flowers golden yellow, c. 1 cm across, pedicel c. 2 mm long, jointed; bracts akin to stipules, 4-6 mm long, purple. Sepals linear-oblong, c. 4 mm long, hooded and awned at the apex, purple dotted outside, green within, glabrous. Petals obovate, 3.5-5 mm long, c. 3 mm broad, obtuse, hairy at the base. Stamens (12-) 30, filaments c. 3 mm long. Carpels 3; ovary oblong-cylindric, c. 1.5-2 mm long, minutely hairy, 3-loculed, truncate above; style 3-fid, c. 1.5 mm long, stigmas bilobed. Capsules solitary or paired, with 3 fairly stout wings, (10-) 15-25 mm long, c. 4-6 mm in diameter, truncate and terminating in 3, bifid, radiating, 3-7 mm long beaks at apex, 3-loculed, locules transversely septate or aseptate. Seeds blackish-brown, angular, rough, obliquely truncate at both ends.

Herbs annual, to 1 m tall. Stem red-brown, slightly yellowish puberulent; branches slender. Petiole 0.9-1.6 cm, with yellowish, long, rigid hairs; leaf blade ovate or broadly ovate, 4.5-6.5 × 3-4 cm, sparsely pilose on both surfaces, glabrescent, basal veins 5-7, lateral veins 3-6 pairs, base rounded, margin serrate, basal pair of teeth usually elongating into filiform or caudate appendages, apex shortly acuminate or acute. Flowers solitary or several together in cymes, axillary or leaf-opposed; peduncle and pedicel very short or absent. Sepals 5, purple-red abaxially, narrowly oblong, ca. 5 mm, semi-foveolately boat-shaped distally, apex awned. Petals 5, yellow, nearly as long as sepals, obovate. Stamens many, yellow, ca. 3 mm. Ovary 3-5-loculed, long cylindrical, puberulent; style rodlike; stigma beaklike, 5-toothed. Capsule cylindrical, angled, 3-5-valved, 1.2-2.5 × ca. 0.5 cm, apex 3-5-angled, awns bifurcate. Seeds separated by transverse septum. Fl. summer-autumn.

A pantropical herbaceous weed.

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Bangla Desh, Burma, Malaya, Indo-China, Australia, tropical Africa, West Indies and Central America.

400-900 m

Fl. Per.: August-October.

Widely cultivated. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa, Australia, Central America, West Indies].