Product Description
Coral Bead Vine. Common name: rosary pea, crab's eye, jequerite, precatory bean, weesboontje, paternoster bean, deadly crab's eye, wild liquorice, ruti, jequirity bean, coral bean, prayerbead and Coral Bead Vine. This small, climbing, tropical vine with alternately compound leaves is indigenous to Indonesia but also grows in Surinam. The flowers are small, pale, violet to pink, and arranged in clusters. The fruit (a pod) is flat and truncate-shaped, and it grows 1 - 2" long. The seedpod curls back when it opens to reveal the seeds. The small, hard, brilliant red seeds with a black spot are very toxic due to the phytochemical abrin (consisting of 5 glyco-proteins); a single seed, if broken, can cause blindness or even death if ingested. Abrin is a ribosome-inactivating protein (it blocks protein synthesis) and is one of the deadliest plant toxins known. Fortunately, the toxin is only released if the seeds are broken! In certain parts of India, the boiled seeds are eaten, for cooking destroys the poison. The small seeds are used in jewelry (necklaces) and have a uniform weight of 1/10th of a gram.
- This small, climbing, tropical vine with alternately compound leaves is indigenous to Indonesia but also grows in Surinam
- The flowers are small, pale, violet to pink, and arranged in clusters
- The fruit (a pod) is flat and truncate-shaped, and it grows 1 - 2" long
- The seedpod curls back when it opens to reveal the seeds
- Ships from Ohio
