Velvet Bean (Mucuna pruriens) Gardening
Velvet Bean (Mucuna pruriens) is a tropical climbing legume in the family Fabaceae, native to Southern China and eastern India. It can be found growing in the Caribbean, India, Africa, and the tropics. It is also known as Cowitch, Cow-itch, Buffalo bean, Itchy bean, Bengal bean, kaj kujli and Cowhage. Velvet bean is used as green manure, forage, fallow, silage, and hay. It fixes nitrogen and fertilizes the soil.
Velvet bean is an annual plant infamous for the extreme itchiness produced on contact, especially with the young foliage and the seed pods. Velvet bean is a trailing plant with stems growing over 18 m in length. Young plants are covered in fuzzy hairs, but older and mature plant are free of hairs. The leaves have pointed tips and heavily grooved edges. In young plants, both sides of the leaves are hairy. The many white, lavender, or purple flowers are produced in an axillary raceme, 15-32 cm long.
The fruit is an oblong seed pod, 4-13 cm long, 1-2 cm wide, usually S-shaped, finely pubescent with white or brown hairs. The seed pod contains up 7, oblong-ellipsoid, flattened seeds, 4-6.5 cm long, 1-2 cm thick, 0.8-1.3 cm wide, and , and can be of variable colors, from white, creamy, gray, beige, brown, maroon, shiny black, or mottled, with hilum surrounded by a prominent, cream-colored aril. 100-seed weighs from 55-85 grams. The hairs lining the seed pods and the small spicules on the leaves contains serotonin and mucunain, which caused severe itching when touched.
Cooked fresh shoots or beans are edible. They need to be soaked for at least 30 minutes to 48 hours in advance of cooking, and the water changed up tp several times during cooking, since the plant can be toxic to humans. The process helps leached out phytochemical compound, such as levodopa, to make the product more suitable for consumption. Consuming large quantities of unprocessed Velvet beans is toxic to nonruminant mammals including humans.
Velvet bean is an effective aphrodisiac, to increase libido in both men and women, and a reputed remedy of traditional Ayurveda Indian medicine for diseases including cholera, diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, snakebites, toothaches, diuretic, edema, intestinal worms, gout and many more. Velvet bean extract contains high concentration of levodopa (L-Dopa), the immediate precursor of Dopamine. L-Dopa is converted into dopamine in the body and brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has a profound influence on sexual functions. It is also traditionally used as a carminative, hypertensive and hypoglycemic agent. The plant and its extract is used as a toxin antagonist by tribal communities in the prophylactic treatment of various snakebites.
Flowers of Velvet Bean (Mucuna pruriens)
Author: Agong1 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Seed pods are covered with irritating hairs
Author: Scott Zona (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
Velvet bean
Author: Tracey Slotta (public domain)
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