Lab Hours

May 4 Research in Library 3 hours
May 7 Online research
May 10 Entering data and research 6 hours
May 12 De Young Museum in San Francisco, 6 hours
May 12 Museum to re measure items. finished organizing info  4 hours
May 13 Museum to check database numbers, final prep of info 2 hours

Chinese Tobacco Pouch and Healds College Advertising Mirror - HELP

Anyone run into information on either of these types of items???

Maori cape, skirts, weaving and SEA BEANS or Matchbox Beans

I have a couple of excellent books on Maori weaving, capes, cloaks, skirts, mats.  Also a book in Tropical Drift Seeds - Calling Jessica, get in touch with me!!

Matchbox Beans

I found some online information about Matchbox Beans.  This is for Jessica mainly.

http://www.seabean.com/locations/Australia/

http://www.junglejournals.com/2012/10/jungle-plants-matchbox-bean.html

http://www.beachbeans.com/descriptions.html

Matchbox Bean

A robust climbing vine native to the east coast of Cape York produces a poisonous giant hanging bean. The white section of the bean was extracted, baked and pounded to produce a sort of flour that was soaked in fresh water and eaten as a bland, tasteless “porridge”. The bark and stem were soaked in water and crushed with the resulting toxic lather used as a soap and fish poison.

Australia's Bountiful Burny Beans

Burny beans, also known as Velvet beans, are better known by the scientific name of Mucuna gigantea. They drop from a rampant, fast-growing vine found in monsoon forests, open forests and woodlands, riverine, littoral, subtropical and tropical rainforests. Ours are collected from the beaches of Far Northern Queensland, Australia. They can also be found throughout Asia.

Mucuna gigantea has pale green flowers in spring and summer. The fruit is a brown, thick pod containing 4 black seeds. Brindle red and black or brown seeds can also be found, but are not nearly as common as the black. This vine is a useful screening plant and readily attracts butterflies. The seed germinates quickly by nicking the hard outer coat.

In Australia, powdered bark from the vine is mixed with dry ginger and used for rheumatic complaints by rubbing it over the affected areas. The seed was once eaten by Aborigines after preparation.

Most Burny Beans found are jet black. Brindle patterns, reds and shades of brown are more rare.

         Entada phaseoloides - Matchbox Bean (seed)

A vigorous climber native to North QLD and pacific countries. Also called Gogo Vine (I prefer this name). The seeds are 5-7cm diameter and 1cm thick, they have a hard coat and this enables them to survive for many years at sea, washing around with the current before being washed up on beaches. For this reason they are also more generally known as Sea Beans, which include seeds from other genera such as Mucuna, Ipomoea and Canavalia. They are made into necklaces and jewellery, the common name of Matchbox Bean refers to their use many years ago as a matchbox.

Entada phaseoloides

Family

Mimosaceae

Botanical Name

Entada phaseoloides (L.) Merr.
Merrill, E.D. (1914) Philippine Journal of Science Section C. Botany 9: 86. Type: ?.

Synonyms

Entada scandens (L.) Benth., Hooker's Journal of Botany 4: 332(1841), Type: ?. Lens phaseoloides L. in O.Stickman, Herb. Amoin.: 18(1754), Type: Basd on desciption & plate of Faba marina Rumph. Herb. Amboin. 5: pl. 4 (1750).

Common name

Matchbox Bean; Vine, Gogo; Matchbox Bean; Elva Climber; Climber, Elva; Elva Climber; Vine, Go-go; Go-go Vine; Bean, Matchbox; Gogo Vine

Stem

Vine stem diameters to 18 cm recorded. Stems laterally compressed or flattened and twisted like a corkscrew. Vessels large, readily visible to the naked eye in transverse sections. Included bark segments pink. Pith eccentric, located much closer to one margin than the other in stem cross sections.

Leaves

Leaves bipinnate with about 8-16 leaflets, (two to four leaflets on each secondary axis) main rhachis projecting as a branched tendril beyond the leaf. Leaflet blades about 4-11 x 2.5-5.5 cm, leaflet stalks about 0.1-0.7 cm long, transversely wrinkled. Stipules linear, falcate, about 2-4 x 2 mm. Lateral veins forming loops well inside the blade margin. Scattered large clear glands visible to the naked eye in the leaflet blades, numerous smaller glands visible with a lens.

Flowers

Flowers +/- cup-shaped, about 1.5 mm diam. at the apex. Corolla pink to red on the outer surface, inner surface cream or translucent. Petals about 3 x 1-1.5 mm. Staminal filaments crumpled in the bud, filaments about 6-7 mm long at anthesis. Style crumpled in the bud. Ovules about 12.

Fruit

Fruits flattened, about 88-100 x 9-12 cm, constricted at intervals and divided into about 12 segments, each segment about 7 x 9-10 cm, surrounded by endocarp and falling from the pod leaving only the sutures of the pod attached to the vine. Exocarp shed by rolling up into rolls of tissue. Endocarp not hard, +/- leathery or like parchment. Seeds laterally compressed, about 5-6 cm diam. and 1-1.5 cm thick. Testa hard. Cotyledons hard, about 4.5-5.5 x 4.5-5 cm diam., fused around the margin. Radicle about 4 mm long.

Seedlings 

Features not available.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 100 m. Grows in beach forest, gallery forest, monsoon forest and lowland rain forest. Also occurs in New Guinea and other parts of Malesia, Asia and the Pacific islands.

Natural History

Food plant for the larval stages of the Tailed Green-banded Blue Butterfly. Common & Waterhouse (1981).
This species may have medicinal properties and has been used as a fish poison. (http://squid2.laughingsquid.net/hosts/herbweb.com /herbage/A9713.htm)
This species has been used medicinally in Malaysia, the Philippines and Java. The fruits are regarded as a contraceptive. Cribb (1981).