Actually taste with caution and don't make it a habit - Trichosanthes is a big part of Chinese herbal medicine and some of the chemical constituents of Trichosanthes, the proteins, are looking promising as becoming part of the newest AIDS battery of drugs.
This link just touches the surface on the medicinal properties - pretty much the whole plant is used.
http://www.drugs.com/npp/chine...
I was so stunned by this flower I bought 5 more packs of seeds and am determined to get a male and female plant so I can share if you're interested. I got my seeds from Horizon Herbs and they said that germination was poor .. I'm thinking that pollination may be sketchy, maybe requiring a specific insect or something. Hopefully if I can get a male and female plant I can up the success rate with hand pollination. I'm almost positive that I had a female plant because the base of the flower certainly looked like an embyro gourd.
