Description

Vegetable hummingbird commonly known as , West Indian pea, agati, or katurai, is a small tree in the genus Sesbania in the legume family. It has edible flowers and leaves commonly eaten in the Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Characteristics:

It is a fast-growing tree. The leaves are regular and rounded and the flowers white, red or pink. The fruits look like flat, long, thin green beans. The tree thrives under full exposure to sunshine and is extremely frost sensitive. Flavor: Bitter, Pros: Acute, Strength: Cold The leaf extract may inhibit the formation of advanced glycation end-products. The leaf extract contains linolenic acid and aspartic acid, which were found to be the major compounds responsible for the anti-glycation potential of the leaf extract. It is a small soft wooded tree up to 3–8 m (10–26 ft) tall. Leaves are 15–30 cm (6–12 in) long, with leaflets in 10–20 pairs or more and an odd one. Flowers are oblong, 1.5–10 cm (1–4 in) long in lax, with two to four flower racemes. The calyx is campanulate and shallowly two-lipped. Pods are slender, falcate or straight, and 30–45 cm (12–18 in) long, with a thick suture and approximately 30 seeds 8 mm (0.3 in) in size.

Medicinal Uses:

The leaves are aperient and diuretic. Crushed leaves are applied as a poultice to sprains and bruises of all kinds, swellings, rheumatism, itching etc. A tea made from the leaves is believed to have antibiotic, anthelmintic, antitumor and contraceptive properties. The bitter bark is considered as an astringent, febrifuge, tonic and an antipyretic, a remedy for gastric troubles, colic with diarrhoea and dysentery. A bark decoction is taken orally to treat fever, diarrhoea, dysentery and diabetes. The flowers are emollient and laxative. Juice of the flowers, put in the eyes, is said to relieve dimness of vision. Sinus congestion is reduced by taking a decoction of the flowers. The root is a well-known medicine for malaria. Root juices are used for poultices. A paste of the root is applied externally in the treatment of rheumatism.