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The luffas (from Arabic ???; also spelled loofah or loofa) are tropical and subtropical annual vines comprising the genus Luffa. The fruit of at least two species, L. acutangula and L. aegyptiaca, is grown to be harvested before maturity and eaten as a vegetable, sometimes called Chinese okra, popular in Asia and Africa. L. acutangula is also known as Ridge Gourd and is called jaati lau in Assamese, ?? si1gua1 in Mandarin Chinese, jhingey in Bengali, turai in Hindi, heeray kAyi in Kannada, wetakolu in Sinhala, mu?p khía in Vietnamese language, patola in Tagalog, kabatiti in Ilocano, and gambas or oyong in Indonesia. The fruit of L. aegyptiaca may also be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem. This version is called dhundul in Bengali, ghiya tori or nerua in Hindi or "peerkankai" in Tamil or "beera kaya" in Telugu
Luffa species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Hypercompe albicornis.
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