Prayer Beads

Overview

Native to Pakistan, India, Ceylon and tropical Africa and introduced widely in the New and Old World. This plant now grows in hedges and among bushes in all tropical regions. Prayer beads seeds have been used since ancient times in India to help weigh precious materials. Five saponins have been discovered from this leaves. These have been found to be 30 to 100 times sweeter than sugar and are currently being explored as sugar substitute sweetener.

Vernacular Names

Saga (Indonesian), Toazuki (Japanese), Ji mu zhu (Chinese), Abrus à prière (French), Kranzerbse (German), Fagiolo corallino (Italian), Chek-awn (Myanmar), Bejuco dechochos (Spanish).

Agroecology

It grows in subtropical moist forest (1,000 to 2,000 mm of precipitation), and subtropical dry forest (below 1,000 mm of precipitation), and prefers well-drained soil but can tolerate most types. The species competes well with weeds and brush in abandoned farmland, disturbed areas, and early secondary forest. It requires disturbance to maintain it self in dense, closed stands. In grassland, copped land, thickets, up to 1.500 m altitude.

Morphology

• Leaves - pinnate and 5–8 cm long.
• Leaflets - rhomboid, numbering 20–24 or more, opposite, and are 1.2–1.8 cm long.
• Flower - in terminal and/or axillary pseudoracemes, clustered around the swollen nodes of rachis, pink coloured.
• Fruits - an oblong pod, thinly septate, pilose, wrinkled, cylindrical, inflated, 5–6 cm by 1 cm.
• Seeds - contains 3–6 round, subglobose, glossy black and red.

Cultivation

• Propagation by seeds and softwood cuttings.

Chemical Constituents

• Seeds contain abrin, indole alkaloids, triterpenoid, saponins, and anthocyanins.
• Root and leaves contain glycyrrhizin and traces of abrin.
• Herbs and roots have series of isoflavanquinones.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• It has been used medicinally in the past as a contraceptive, abortifacient (to induce a miscarriage), and as a treatment for chronic conjunctivitis.
• A decoction of the leaves has been prescribed for scurvy, cough, bronchitis, sprue and hepatitis and as a refrigerant. They are also applied on painfuls wellings, eye inflammation, cancer, syphilis and on leucoder-mic spots. The leaves are also effective in the treatment of coryza cough, fever, and jaundice resulting from viral hepatitis and intoxications.
• Seeds have been used to treat fever, malaria, headache, dropsy, and toexpel worms. A decoction of the seeds is applied for abdominal complaints, conjunctivitis, trachoma, and malarial fever.
• Extract root and leaves are used for aphthae.
• In coastal area of Papua New Guinea, leaves are chewed for a week, as asthma treatment.