Vigna umbellata

Rice bean ( Vigna umbellata )

The rice bean ( Vigna umbellata ) is a species of the subfamily Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) within the legume family ( Fabaceae or Leguminosae). This saw the world insignificant crop is closely related to a number of other " beans " called crops. The German trivial name is a translation of the English ( " Rice bean " ), whereby the rice similar method of preparation is expressed.

Occurrence

The wild form of rice bean comes from central China to Southeast Asia, south of the Himalayas to Malaysia. In the same area, the cultural forms were grown traditionally. Today it is also used on many tropical islands of the Pacific and Africa. The precipitation can be 700-1700 mm.

Description

The rice bean is a very fast growing and very early maturing, annual herbaceous plant. It grows erect to slightly pendulous, reaching heights of growth of about 30 to 70 cm or more growing varieties with twining or trailing stems that can be up to 3 meters long. The stems have stiff, short white hairs ( trichomes ). The leaves usually have 2 to 15, rarely up to 37 cm long stems and three-part leaf blades. The long - oval to lance-shaped leaves are part of 5 to 10 cm long and 2.5 to 6 cm wide. The leaf margins are usually smooth or the lateral part sheets can also be slightly three-lobed. The stipules are 8 to 12 mm.

Contain the axillary standing at 5 to 20 cm long stems racemose inflorescences, two by two to third on a wound dry combined total of five to 20 flowers. The bracts are about 2.5 to 3.0 mm long and the bracts at the base of the sepals are 3 to 3.5 mm long. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic. The fluffy hairy calyx is about 4 mm long with five about 2 mm long calyx teeth. The five petals are (light) yellow. The curved vane is 9 to 12 mm in size. It is usually self-fertilization.

The long, slim, smooth pulses have a length of 6 to 12 cm and a diameter of about 0.5 cm. The mature legumes burst easily. Each legume usually contains six to eight, a maximum of twelve seeds. The elongated rectangular, with typical rounded at the corners, seeds are about 5 to 10 mm long and 2 to 5 mm thick. The thousand grain weight usually varies between 30 and 120 to 230 grams at most. The color of the bean seeds varies between yellow, bright red-brown and black, and speckled forms with concave oblong, white navel there and in India occur sporadically green and grüngefleckte seeds.

Use

Temperatures around 30 ° C, good water supply and loamy soil offer the best conditions for rapid growth and maturity; but the rice bean grows well at lower temperatures and can also survive drought.

You can use as human food young shoots, the leaves, the fresh pods, fresh beans ( = seed ) and the dried beans; latter represent the traditional use dar.

In addition, the rice bean is used as a forage crop (fresh or dried ( hay) ) and for green manure. In this case, the presence of nitrogen-fixing root nodules plays a major role.

System

The first publication as Dolichos umbellatus was 1794 in Linn Trans. Soc., 2, 339 by Carl Peter Thunberg. The currently valid name was in 1968 by Jisaburō Ōi & Hiroyoshi Ōhashi in J. Jap. Bot, 44, 31 published. Synonyms for Vigna umbellata ( Thunb. ) Ohwi & H.Ohashi are: .. . Phaseolus calcaratus Roxb, Vigna calcarata ( Roxb. ) Kurz, Phaseolus pubescens Bl, Phaseolus ricciardus Ten, Dolichos umbellatus Thunb, Adzukia umbellata ( Thunb. ) Ohwi.

Vigna umbellata belongs to the subgenus in the genus Vigna Ceratotropis.