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Velvet Bean
Mucuna sp. nr. pruriens
15.4551, 119.92
Field Notes
Description:
Leguminosae; Mucuna sp. This is the only picture I have of this plant. It looks close to Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC. The "Fruit" or "Flower" was quite large, about 18 inches from top to bottom. On the day I took the photo, I was having a great spotting day (long before I joined Project Noah) wandering all over our farm and surrounding area. I had taken more than 170 photos, several pictures of each creature I saw, and I knew that some of them were species that were new to me. So I was keen to get home and have a look at my "new discoveries". I passed by the plant shown here and rather half-heartedly took a snapshot (one only) and went home. This proved to be a huge mistake. All the other subjects of my pictures that day were immediately identifiable, this one remained unidentified until today, when I uploaded it to Project Noah as a "Spotting". I was greatly surprised to receive an ID Suggestion from arne.roysland, within one hour!! I was even more surprised that he cited one of my favourite websites as his source - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Nipai.html - I visit that website frequently when trying to identify plants, but did not find the article on this particular plant. So I would like to express my thanks to arne.roysland for his his help.
Habitat:
This plant was growing along with many other "weeds" on and around an old dilapidated farm building.
Notes:
This vine had climbed up a mango tree and along a horizontal branch, until it reached the framework of a dilapidated building (which had collapsed in a typhoon). Then it appears to have grown along some remaining parts of the structure, until this fruit (or flower) hung down to where I saw it. All this detail came rather late, because when I started to realize that this was going to be difficult to identify, I went back to the spot where I saw it, with the intention of taking a lot of pictures. This was some days after the initial spotting and what did I find? The entire "vine" had been pulled down onto the ground and the end where the "fruit" had been was clean cut through by a sharp knife. Our own workers would never have done such a thing. This was the work of a trespasser. So, there it is. A lesson for us all - if you see something, take a sufficient number of pictures while you have the chance. :-)
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