Mucuna monosperma Wight

Family: Fabaceae

Synonym:Mucuna anguina Wall.

Bengali/Vernacular name: Nata alkushi, Soash guri.

Tribal name: Bong-cha-khu (Chak), Yaa-bawn (Marma).

English name: Negro bean.

Description of the plant: A large, woody, perennial twiner, young branches clothed with rusty brown, deciduous tomentum. Leaves15-25 cm long, 3-foliolate; leaflets 7-10 cm long, ovate-oblong or elliptic, shortly acuminate. Flowers purple, in 6-12 flowered corymbose axillary racemes; corolla 3.8 cm long, purple. Fruit a pod, winged on both sutures and obliquely pliated on the faces, covered with brown, deciduous, irritant bristles. Seed solitary, slightly compressed, dark brown, smooth, shining.

Plant parts used: Seed.

Herbal uses: Paste prepared from the seeds of the plant is applied to the affected area to treat paralysis.

Seeds of the plant are used for the treatment gonorrhoea, sterility, and general debility.

Decoction prepared from the seeds of the plant is used to treat cough and asthma.

Distribution: It is found in Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracts, and Sylhet districts.

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