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Mucuna glabra (Rein.) Wilmot-Dear. [ Fabaceae ]

Taxonomy Reports: ITIS | IPNI | IOPI

Samoan Name:
English Name:
Status: Indigenous
Habit: Vine

Whistler 3157

Indigenous to American Samoa, also found in independent Samoa and probably Tonga. This liana is known in American Samoa only from a single collection from Ta‘ū in 1976, but it could easily be misidentified in the field (especially when lacking flowers or fruits) as the common Mucuna gigantea. It occurs in lowland to cloud forest, reported from 300 to ca. 1200 m elevation. It is much more common in independent Samoa, where at least 14 collections are known. It is probably this species that is called fue vai (literally, “drinking vine”); it is well known to people familiar with the forest; when the liana stem is cut, it exudes a potable liquid.

High-climbing liana with stems that are sparsely pubescent when young, woody, thick and knobby when mature. Leaves trifoliate, alternate, rachis 12–35 cm long, flat on the upper side, swollen at the base, blades elliptic to ovate, terminal one 6–17 cm long, lateral ones nearly as long but unequally sided, rounded to acute at the base, attenuate to sometimes rounded at the tip; surfaces glabrous, upper side dark green, lower side lighter, palmately 3- or 5-veined from the base; margins entire; petiolules thickened, 5–12 mm long, with a pair of tiny linear stipels. Inflorescence an axillary cluster of several racemes (often only one or two of them developing) up to 15 cm or more in length, borne on leafless woody stems. Calyx broadly cup-shaped, 0.8–1.8 cm long (in fruit), and wider than long, with 5 inconspicuous lobes on its margins, on a pedicel up to 3 cm long. Corolla papilionaceous, pale green; banner ovate, notched at the tip, ca. 3.2–4 cm long; wings falcate, 4.5–6 cm long; keel curved, 5.5–6.5 cm long. Fruit an ovate to narrowly oblong legume 9–22 cm long, longitudinally 2-winged on the two margins, with the sides irregularly and transversely ridged with ridges up to 8 mm wide, appressed red-brown pubescent, containing 1–several dark, discoid seeds 2–2.5 cm in diameter. Flowering and fruiting probably occur throughout the year.

Distinguishable by its high-climbing woody vine habit; trifoliate leaves; terminal leaflet 6–17 cm long with a broadly cuneate base; petiole of leaflet sometimes pubescent; showy greenish, papilionaceous flowers in hanging racemes; and a pod with transverse ridges.

TA‘Ū:
239. Whistler 3157—Along the Fale‘i‘ulu Stream, no elevation given.

Other Samoan Collections: SAVAII: (9). UPOLU: (5). WITHOUT FURTHER LOCALITY: (1).

Other Collections:

Georeference: -14.315569, -170.701986

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