Sesbania grandiflora

''Sesbania grandiflora'', commonly known as vegetable hummingbird, katurai, agati, or West Indian pea, is a small leguminous tree native to Maritime Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. It has edible flowers and leaves commonly eaten in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Description

''Sesbania grandiflora'' is a fast-growing tree. The leaves are regular and rounded and the flowers white, red or pink. The fruits look like flat, long, thin green beans. The tree thrives under full exposure to sunshine and is extremely frost sensitive.

It is a small soft wooded tree up to tall. Leaves are long, with leaflets in 10–20 pairs or more and an odd one. Flowers are oblong, long in lax, with two to four flower racemes. The calyx is campanulate and shallowly two-lipped. Pods are slender, falcate or straight, and long, with a thick suture and approximately 30 seeds in size.

Origin and distribution

It is native to Maritime Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei) to Northern Australia, and is cultivated in many parts of South India and Sri Lanka. It has many traditional uses.
It grows where there is good soil and a hot, humid climate.

Culinary uses

The flowers of ''S. grandiflora'' are eaten as a vegetable in Southeast Asia and South Asia, including Java and Lombok in Indonesia, the Ilocos Region of the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

In Khmer language, the flowers are called ផ្កាអង្គាដី ''(angkea dei)'' and young leaves and flowers are used in the cuisine both cooked in curries, such as ''Samlor mchou angkea dei'' and salad sauce ''bok amproek'' or '' toek kroeung''.

In the Thai language, the flowers are called ดอกแค ''(dok khae)'' and are used in the cuisine both cooked in curries, such as ''kaeng som'' and '' kaeng khae'', and raw or blanched with '' nam phrik''.Thailand Illustrated Magazine

In India, this plant is known as '' அகத்தி'' (Tamil), hadga (हादगा in Marathi), ''agasti'' (Odia), ''agasey'' (Kannada), '' అవిసె'' (Telugu), and both the leaves and the flowers have culinary uses. It is known as ''Bok phool'' (বকফুল) in West Bengal and Assam, India and Bangladesh, and is eaten after being fried with gram paste.

The young pods are also eaten. In Sri Lanka, agati leaves, known as ''Katuru murunga'' in Sinhala language, are sometimes added to ''sudhu hodhi'' or white curry, a widely eaten, thin coconut gravy. It is also eaten in the Maldives (locally known as Feeru Muran'ga, ފީރު މުރަނގަ).

See also

*''Sesbania bispinosa''
*'' Dolichandrone spathacea'', known as ''Dok khae thale'' in Thai
*'' Markhamia stipulata'', known as ''Dok khae hua mu'' in Thai
* Edible flowers
* List of Thai ingredients

References

External links

''Sesbania grandiflora'' on Tropicalforages.info''Sesbania grandiflora'' in the AgroForestry Database of the World Agroforestry Centre





* ttp://www.kohenoorint.com/ " Sesbania Seeds Exporter Kohenoor International Pakistan"
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Faboideae
Trees of Malesia
Trees of Australia
Inflorescence vegetables
Garden plants of Asia
Nitrogen-fixing crops
Ornamental trees