''Aeschynomene indica'' is a species of flowering plant in the legume family. Common names include Indian jointvetch, kat sola,''Aeschynomene indica''.
USDA PLANTS. budda pea, curly indigo, hard sola, northern jointvetch,Cook, B. G., et al

Tropical Forages. CSIRO, DPI&F (Qld), CIAT and ILRI, Brisbane, Australia. ''indische Schampflanze'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

), ''angiquinho'', ''maricazinho'', ''papquinha'', ''pinheirinho'' (

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...

), ''he meng'' (

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

), ''kusanemu'' (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

), ''diya siyambala'' ( Sinhala), and ''ikin sihk'' (

Pohnpeian Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with anot ...

).''Aeschynomene indica''.
Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (PIER). USFS. The true native range of this species is unclear because it is thought to have been introduced so widely, but it probably includes parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the southeastern North America. It is likely a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

species on many islands of the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, including

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

, the

Society Islands The Society Islands ( , officially ; ) are an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean that includes the major islands of Tahiti, Mo'orea, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country ...

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

, and

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

. It is also introduced in South America.

Description

This species is variable. It is an annual or perennial herb or subshrub growing 30 centimeters to 2.5 meters tall. The stem is usually thin, about half a centimeter wide, but it can grow thick at the base, up to 2.5 centimeters wide. It is spongy or corky, or sometimes hollow and cylindric. It is mostly hairless but sometimes has glandular hairs with tubercular bases. The leaves are up to 10 centimeters long. Each leaf is made up of many narrow, papery leaflets each up to 1.3 centimeters long. Some leaves are sensitive. The spurred

stipule In botany, a stipule is an outgrowth typically borne on both sides (sometimes on just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole (botany), petiole). They are primarily found among dicots and rare among monocots. Stipules are considered part ...

is up to 1.5 centimeters long. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is made up of 1 to 6 flowers with reddish- or purple-streaked yellow or whitish corollas. The long, narrow

legume Legumes are plants in the pea family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seeds of such plants. When used as a dry grain for human consumption, the seeds are also called pulses. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consum ...

pod is up to 4.8 centimeters long and is straight or curved, with up to 13 chambers. It contains black or brown kidney-shaped seeds each 2 or 3 millimeters long.Le Houérou, H., et al
''Aeschynomene indica'' L.
Grassland Species Profies. FAO.

Habitat

The plant often grows in wet, muddy habitat, such as

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s, and paddy fields. It is also known from dry land. It has been observed in association with ''

Sesbania ''Sesbania'' is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, and the only genus found in tribe Sesbanieae. Riverhemp is a common name for plants in this genus. Notable species include the rattlebox (''Sesbania punicea''), spiny sesba ...

'' spp. and ''

Acacia nilotica ''Vachellia nilotica'', more commonly known as ''Acacia nilotica'', and by the vernacular names of gum arabic tree, babul, thorn mimosa, Egyptian acacia or thorny acacia, is a flowering tree in the family Fabaceae. It is native to Africa, the M ...

'' ssp. '' tomentosa''. It grows in disturbed habitat, such as roadside ditches, often becoming

weed A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. Pla ...

Biology

The plant, like others of its genus, sometimes develops nodes similar to the

root nodule Root nodules are found on the roots of plants, primarily legumes, that form a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, capable plants form a symbiotic relationship with a host-specific strain of bacteria known ...

s of many other legumes, but the nodes grow on the stem in addition to the roots. They contain ''

Bradyrhizobium ''Bradyrhizobium'' is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-negative soil bacteria, many of which fix nitrogen. Nitrogen fixation is an important part of the nitrogen cycle. Plants cannot use atmospheric nitrogen (N2); they must use nitrogen co ...

'' species,

nitrogen-fixing Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular dinitrogen () is converted into ammonia (). It occurs both biologically and abiological nitrogen fixation, abiologically in chemical industry, chemical industries. Biological nitrogen ...

bacteria that can perform

photosynthesis Photosynthesis ( ) is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabo ...

.Bonaldi, K., et al. (2011)
Nodulation of ''Aeschynomene afraspera'' and ''A. indica'' by photosynthetic ''Bradyrhizobium'' sp. Strain ORS285: The Nod-dependent versus the Nod-independent symbiotic interaction.
''Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions'' 24(11) 1359-71. The symbiotic bacterium '' Blastobacter denitroficans'' also inhabits the nodes.van Berkum, P. and B. D. Eardly. (2002)
The aquatic budding bacterium ''Blastobacter denitrificans'' is a nitrogen-fixing symbiont of ''Aeschynomene indica''.
''Applied and Environmental Microbiology'' 68(3) 1132-36. This species is susceptible to the plant disease

anthracnose A plant canker is a small area of dead tissue, which grows slowly, often over years. Some cankers are of only minor consequence, but others are ultimately lethal and therefore can have major economic implications for agriculture and horticultur ...

caused by the fungus ''

Colletotrichum gloeosporioides ''Glomerella cingulata'' is a fungal plant pathogen, being the name of the sexual stage ( teleomorph) while the more commonly referred to asexual stage ( anamorph) is called ''Colletotrichum gloeosporioides''. For most of this article the pathog ...

''.

Uses

This plant is used as

green manure In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically cultivated to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's Biomass (ecology), biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) man ...

. It is not very palatable to animals but it is sometimes given as

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food ...

. It can be toxic, however. The seeds can poison

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), also called swine (: swine) or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the genus '' Sus''. Some authorities cons ...

s, causing loss of coordination, falls, and death. Examination of the brain tissue of affected animals revealed swelling and hemorrhage.Oliveira, F. N., et al. (2004)
Focal symmetrical encephalomalacia in swine from ingestion of ''Aeschynomene indica'' seeds.
''Vet Hum Toxicol.'' 46(6) 309-11. The pithy stems are used for floating devices, such as rafts and floats for fishing nets. The plant is also used as a

spermicide Spermicide is a contraceptive substance that destroys spermatozoon, sperm, inserted vaginally prior to Sexual intercourse, intercourse to prevent pregnancy. As a contraceptive, spermicide may be used alone. However, the pregnancy rate experienc ...

. Its

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

is made into

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

. The yellow flowers are eaten by people in Cambodia, who call the herb ''snaô ach' moën'' (''snaô''="edible flowers", ''ach' moën''="chicken poo",

Khmer language Khmer ( ; , Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken natively by the Khmer people. This language is an official language and national language of Cambodia. The language is also widely spoken by Khmer people i ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5782393 indica Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus