''Canavalia cathartica'', commonly known as ''maunaloa'' in the Hawaiian language,Quattrocchi, Umberto; 2012; CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms, Synonyms, and Etymology; Vol.1; Page 773; CRC Press; ; https://books.google.nl/books?id=-37OBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA773&lpg=PA773&dq=Poisonous+sea+bean+canavalia&source=bl&ots=8hGDup1lY_&sig=9dguWluPq0n4NJFDw0DdqzLmH1I&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y''Canavalia cathartica''.
Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).Anita, D. D. and K. R. Sridhar. (2009)
Assemblage and diversity of fungi associated with mangrove wild legume ''Canavalia cathartica''.
''Tropical and Subtropical Agroecosystems'' 10(2), 225-35. is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. The Hawaiian name translates as ''long mountain''. In English it may also be known as poisonous sea bean, ground jack bean, horse bean, silky sea bean or wild bean. It has a

Paleotropical The Paleotropical Kingdom (Paleotropis) is a floristic kingdom comprising tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), as proposed by Ronald Good and Armen Takhtajan. Part of its flora, inherited from the ancient ...

distribution,''Canavalia cathartica''.
Flora of the Hawaiian Islands. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. occurring throughout

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

regions in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, Australia, and many Pacific Islands, and extending just into subtropical areas. It is not native to Hawaii, and is an invasive species there.

Description

This plant is a biennial''Canavalia cathartica''.
Flora of China. or perennial herb with thick, twining, climbing stems. The

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...

leaves are each divided into three papery leaflets which are generally oval in shape with pointed or rounded tips. They are up to 20 centimeters long by 14 wide, but usually smaller. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

is a raceme or pseudoraceme of several flowers. The flower has a bell-shaped calyx of

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coine ...

s with two lips, an upper lip with two lobes and a lower lip with three teeth. The flower corolla is pink or purplish with a white-spotted standard petal and two wing and two keel petals each roughly 3 centimeters long. The fruit is an inflated, turgid legume pod up to 13.5 centimeters long by 4.5 wide. The fresh, mature pod can weigh over 32 grams.Seena, S. and K. R. Sridhar. (2006)
Nutritional and microbiological features of little known legumes, ''Canavalia cathartica'' Thouars and ''C. maritima'' Thouars of the southwest coast of India.
''Current Science'' 90(12), 1638-50. The hard, smooth seeds are reddish brown, darkening deeper brown, and reaching nearly 2 centimeters long by one wide.

Ecology

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

this plant grows in

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s. The seeds float on the water and land on coastal sand dunes, where the plant establishes. It is mat-forming and binds the sand, preventing

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is dis ...

. This legume has a rich microbial ecology, including its

nodal Nodal homolog is a secretory protein that in humans is encoded by the ''NODAL'' gene which is located on chromosome 10q22.1. It belongs to the transforming growth factor beta superfamily (TGF-β superfamily). Like many other members of this superf ...

rhizobia, its

arbuscular mycorrhiza An arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) (plural ''mycorrhizae'', a.k.a. ''endomycorrhiza'') is a type of mycorrhiza in which the symbiont fungus (''AM fungi'', or AMF) penetrates the cortical cells of the roots of a vascular plant forming arbuscules. ( ...

e, and an assemblage of

endophytic An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life cycle without causing apparent disease. Endophytes are ubiquitous and have been found in all species of plants studied to date; h ...

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

. Common arbuscular fungal associates include the glomeromycetes '' Gigaspora albida'', '' Acaulospora spinosa'', and several species of '' Glomus'', including '' G. aggregatum''. Microbial surveys have catalogued many endophytes in the plant, with varying assemblages in different habitat types. It houses the ascomycete ''

Chaetomium globosum ''Chaetomium globosum'' is a well-known mesophilic member of the mold family Chaetomiaceae. It is a saprophytic fungus that primarily resides on plants, soil, straw, and dung. Endophytic ''C. globosum'' assists in cellulose decomposition of plant ...

'' in its roots. It also contains ''

Colletotrichum dematium ''Colletotrichum dematium'' is a plant pathogen causing anthracnose A plant canker is a small area of dead tissue, which grows slowly, often over years. Some cankers are of only minor consequence, but others are ultimately lethal and therefo ...

'', ''

Aspergillus niger ''Aspergillus niger'' is a mold classified within the ''Nigri'' section of the ''Aspergillus'' genus. The ''Aspergillus'' genus consists of common molds found throughout the environment within soil and water, on vegetation, in fecal matter, on de ...

'', '' A. flavus'', ''

Fusarium oxysporum ''Fusarium oxysporum'' (Schlecht as emended by Snyder and Hansen), an ascomycete fungus, comprises all the species, varieties and forms recognized by Wollenweber and Reinking within an infrageneric grouping called section Elegans. It is part of ...

'', and ''

Penicillium chrysogenum ''Penicillium chrysogenum'' (formerly known as ''Penicillium notatum'') is a species of fungus in the genus ''Penicillium''. It is common in temperate and subtropical regions and can be found on salted food products, but it is mostly found in in ...

''. The microbial life hosted by the plant likely helps it persist in harsh coastal habitat.

Uses

The seeds and pods are used as

famine food A famine food or poverty food is any inexpensive or readily available food used to nourish people in times of hunger and starvation, whether caused by extreme poverty, such as during economic depression or war, or by natural disasters such ...

s in coastal India.Bhagya, B., et al. (2006)
Biochemical and protein quality evaluation of tender pods of wild legume ''Canavalia cathartica'' of coastal sand dunes.
''Livestock Research for Rural Development'' 18, 1-20. It is considered to be an underutilized wild plant with the potential to serve as a protein- and carbohydrate-rich food crop. It has more protein than several other edible legumes such as

pigeon pea The pigeon pea (''Cajanus cajan'') is a perennial legume from the family Fabaceae native to the Old World. The pigeon pea is widely cultivated in tropical and semitropical regions around the world, being commonly consumed in South Asia, South ...

, chickpea, and

cowpea The cowpea (''Vigna unguiculata'') is an annual herbaceous legume from the genus ''Vigna''. Its tolerance for sandy soil and low rainfall have made it an important crop in the semiarid regions across Africa and Asia. It requires very few inputs, ...

. It grows rapidly, tolerates challenging habitat types such as dry, sandy, saline soils, and appears to be fairly pest-resistant. Like many legumes, ''C. cathartica'' contains antinutrients and requires some processing or preparation before it can be used for food. Antinutrients in the species include

phenol Phenol (also called carbolic acid) is an aromatic organic compound with the molecular formula . It is a white crystalline solid that is volatile. The molecule consists of a phenyl group () bonded to a hydroxy group (). Mildly acidic, it ...

tannin Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids. The term ''tannin'' (from Anglo-Norman ''tanner'' ...

s, and lectins such as

phytohaemagglutinin Phytohaemagglutinin (PHA, or phytohemagglutinin) is a lectin found in plants, especially certain legumes. PHA actually consists of two closely related proteins, called leucoagglutinin (PHA-L) and PHA-E. These proteins cause blood cells to clump ...

Pressure cooking Pressure cooking is the process of cooking food under high pressure steam and water or a water-based cooking liquid, in a sealed vessel known as a ''pressure cooker''. High pressure limits boiling, and creates higher cooking temperatures which ...

can reduce antinutrients. Roasting is somewhat less effective.Seena, S., et al. (2006)
Effect of roasting and pressure-cooking on nutritional and protein quality of seeds of mangrove legume ''Canavalia cathartica'' from southwest coast of India.
''Journal of Food Composition and Analysis'' 19(4), 284-93. In small-scale agriculture, farmers use this plant as green manure and

mulch A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of soil. Reasons for applying mulch include conservation of soil moisture, improving fertility and health of the soil, reducing weed growth and enhancing the visual appeal of the area. A mu ...

and host it in their fields for its

nitrogen fixation Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atmo ...

. It grows easily on farmland in mangrove

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

s, it native habitat. It is used as

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

fodder. The stems with pods and leaves are fed to rabbits and hares. In numerous recent studies from India it is claimed that this species is the wild ancestor of '' Canavalia gladiata'', referencing the 1974 third or paperback edition or the 1968 hardback edition of Tropical Crops: Dicotyledons by J. W. Purseglove, where it mentions that ''C. virosa'' may be the ancestor of ''C. gladiata'',Purseglove, J.W.; 1974; Tropical Crops : Dicotyledons (3rd ed.), pp.242-246; Longman; London; however this is likely in error, as with ''C. virosa'' in 1968 or 1974 one meant the modern '' C. africana'' using the then current taxonomy.Sauer, Jonathan D.; 1964; Revision of Canavalia; Brittonia, Vol. 16, Issue 2, pp.106-181; NYBG Press; New York; accessed at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wlr8elStrDYJ:https://documentslide.com/documents/revision-of-canavalia.html+&cd=60&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-aVerdcourt, Bernard; 1971; Flora of Tropical East Africa, Leguminosae (4), Papilionoideae, pp.573-574Verdcourt, Bernard; 1987; Three Corrections to the Flora of Tropical East Africa; Kew Bulletin, Vol. 42, No. 3; pp.658-660; Springer; Dordrecht; accessed at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xw08SO0gangJ:https://docslide.com.br/documents/three-corrections-to-the-flora-of-tropical-east-africa.html+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a Sauer himself proposed ''C. gladiolata'' as the ancestor of ''C. gladiata'' in the afore-mentioned article. The plant grows in

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

, where the island inhabitants use it as an herbal remedy for conditions such as

cough A cough is a sudden expulsion of air through the large breathing passages that can help clear them of fluids, irritants, foreign particles and microbes. As a protective reflex, coughing can be repetitive with the cough reflex following three ph ...

. In

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

, where it is a non-native and invasive species, its showy flowers and large seeds are used in leis.Barboza, R
Climbing vine makes for beautiful lei.
'' Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' 13(81) March 21, 2008.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10957851 Canavalia