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Plant · P-319
Katuk
Breynia androgyna
Katuk is a tropical shrub grown as a container plant or hot-season annual for its leaves, which run an unusually high 6-10 percent protein for a leaf vegetable and taste of asparagus and fresh peas when the young shoots are cooked. It bears fast, ready to harvest about two months after planting and cropping until the first freeze kills it back. The one rule that matters: eat it cooked, not as raw juice, which has been linked to serious lung injury in concentrated quantities - an ordinary cooked serving carries no such risk.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 6–7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 6–10 ft
- Mature spread
- 6–9 ft
- Plant spacing
- 20–31 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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