Mucuna urens
Mucuna urens is a species of large liana from the family Fabaceae. The plant is native to tropical Central and South America, and has been introduced into the Republic of the Congo. Common names include horse-eye bean and ox-eye bean. Taxonomy The word mucuna is the vernacular name for Mucuna urens in an indigenous language of Brazil, and in 1763 this word was chosen by the French botanist Michel Adanson in his Familles naturelles des plantes to be the generic epithet for this genus of legumes, although M. urens was itself known as Dolichos urens until being transferred to Mucuna many years later. Description Mucuna urens is a large, vigorous, much-branched, twining liana that climbs into the tree canopy. The stems are thick and soft, and bear alternate, trifoliate leaves with petioles up to long. The leaflets are ovate or elliptical, and up to long; the lateral leaflets are somewhat oblique, and all leaflets have rounded bases and apiculate tips. The inflorescences grow laterally or in the axils of the leaves and are pendulous racemes with peduncles up to a metre long, with the flowering part near the tip. The calyx has a long tube and the petals are thick,