Mucuna Species, Elephant Cowitch, Sea Bean

Mucuna gigantea is one of the many noxious invasive plants in lowland wet areas of Maui. Here in Hana it grows very fast, smothers everyt...Read Morehing in its path, covers tree canopies, crawls across open areas more than 100 feet wide, and produces abundant seed pods. To control it, not only do I have to uproot the vine, but also I have to collect all the seed pods. To make matters worse, Mucuna gigantea is the preferred host of a black lady-bug-like beetle that sprays a toxic and smelly substance. This is a plant that nightmares are made of!

seen it in madagascar, nice flower. Was in bloom in october in madagascar with seeds already , so it flower for quite long time if not a...Read Morell year : with beans of 3 seeds and the bean surface is like hairy and very scratching and brown in colour. Have sowed some seeds 20 days ago, will tell if i succeed! Yes today 5 may 2006 now 1 sprouting from 6 seeds. So take about 6 months and more for the seeds to sprout.