1. Home
2. Canavalia cathartica

Canavalia cathartica

Botanic Family

Fabaceae

Author

Thouars

Cultivated

C, sand binder

Common Names

• Jack Bean
• Horse Bean
• Sword Bean
• Tarwar Simi (Nepali)
• Ganja (Tamang)
• Maunaloa (Hawaiian)
• Xiao dao dou (Pinyin)
• Kihalo (Kiha)
• Bosape (Myanmar)
• Tayok-pe (Myanmar)
• Daû dai (Vietnam)
• Dao dzao (Vietnam)
• Mak dho lap (Vietnam)
• Mkova or Mfiwi Mwitu (Swahili)

Geographical Habitats

• Christmas Island
• Cocos islands
• Northern Territory
• Queensland - Australia
• Bangladesh
• Borneo
• Cambodia
• Caroline Islands
• Guangdong
• Hainan
• Taiwan - China
• Cook Islands
• Fiji
• Society Islands
• Tubuai Island - France
• India
• Java
• Lesser Sunda Islands
• Maluku
• Sulawesi
• Sumatra - Indonesia
• Ryukyu Islands - Japan
• Kenya
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Maldives
• Marianas Islands
• Marshall Islands
• Myanmar
• Namibia
• Nauru
• Nepal
• New Caledonia
• Bismarck Archipelago
• New Guinea - Papua New Guinea
• Tokelau-Manihiki - New Zealand
• Philippines
• Samoa
• Saudi Arabia
• Seychelles
• Singapore
• Solomon Islands
• Somalia
• Natal
• Northern Provinces - South Africa
• Sri Lanka
• Swaziland
• Tahiti
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Tonga
• Tuvalu
• Vanuatu
• Vietnam
• Yemen

Natural Habitats

• Riverbanks

Flowering Times

• Apr-Oct (China)
• Oct (India) Jul
• Oct (Tanzania)

Fruiting Times

• Apr-Oct (China) Feb (Tanzania)

Robust perennial or bi-annual herbaceous glabrous woody twiner or creeper to 6m, leaves & calyx more or less densely hairy. Three foliolate glabrous leaves, leaflets to 200mm x 137mm, sparsely pubescent of glabrous. Axillary racemes to 60mm long of 35mm white, pink, purple or lilac flowers, calyx tube to 11mm long slightly villous outside, upper lip to 4mm long, corolla to 35mm long. Fruit a pod to 135mm x 60mm green aging red-brown.

Animal fodder

Further References

• Huxley 1992
• Manandhar 2002
• Mobot
• FOH
• FOC
• FOSi
• Botanicus
• NYBG
• The Plant List 2
• J.S. Gamble
• BF
• USNH
• F Indochine
• GBS
• Jstor