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Leguminosae
Synonyms
Dolichos scarabaeoides L.
Common names
Wild kulthi (India).
Description
A perennial climber or trailer, forming thick mats. Root-stocks woody,
slender. Stems often reddish, covered with short, ferruginous pubescence.
Leaflets elliptic, the laterals slightly oblique, 0.8 to 7.3 cm long,
0.5 to 3 cm wide, rounded to subacute at both ends, sparsely to densely
greyish-velvety pubescence, and gland dotted on both surfaces. Petioles
0.7 to 2.7 cm long, ferruginous pubescence. Petiolules 1 to 1.5 mm long.
Inflorescence axillary, few-flowered. Peduncles 1 to 3 mm long. Pedicels
about 4 mm long. Calyx about 6 mm long, the lobes longer than the tube.
Standard yellow, flushed with crimson outside, obovate, 9 to 10 mm long,
5 mm. wide, glabrous. Pods oblong, compressed, 1.5 to 2.5 cm long, 5 to
7.5 mm wide, three- to six-seeded. Valves conspicuously grooved between
the seeds, densely, shortly pubescent and with much longer ferruginous,
more or less adpressed hairs and small glands. Seeds reddish, mottled
brown or black, oblong, 4 to 5 x 2.5 to 3 mm, 1.5 to 1.8 mm thick (Gillett,
Polhill and Verdcourt, 1971).
Distribution
Widespread throughout Asia, especially in southern India (north to 24°N
lat.), China, south-east Asia, northern Australia and New Guinea. Undoubtedly
introduced to Africa, where it occurs in West Africa and Zanzibar.
General features
In northern Australia two varieties have been described, var. scarabaeoides
(Syn. var. queenslandica Domin.), which is common and usually grows in
open or cleared woodlands on heavy soils in north Queensland, and var.
pedunculata Reynolds and Pedley, which has a more open habit, leaves less
rugose, and more membranous. It is rarer and found from north-eastern
Queensland to Western Australia, usually on sandy lateritic soils in open
forest (Reynolds and Pedley, 1981).
In India, where A. scarabaeoides has been studied as a potential pasture
legume, it occurs with Sehima nervosum, but not with Heteropogon contortus
in arid areas (Shankar, Velayudhan and Toivedi, 1975), but has been dibbled
into Heteropogon grassland at Jhansi before the monsoon, giving 40 percent
establishment. When planted in rows during the monsoon with 9 kg./ha of
P205, 61 percent establishment was achieved, while siratro gave only 20
and 36 percent establishment under these conditions (Shankarnarayan et
al., 1975) . At Jodhpur, when sown with the first showers but without
inoculation, it was deep rooting and nodulated, but nodules were few (Satyanarayan
and Gaur, 1965). It was also considered suitable for sowing into forest
pastures in Uttar Pradesh, where it remained green in summer.
Plants grown at ICAR, Agra, had a protein content of 8.6 to 12.9 percent
throughout the year and averaged 1.6 percent Ca and 0.15 percent P (Singh,
1962) .
A. scarabaeoides was considered to be among the most suitable legumes
for permanent pastures in the Guinea zone of Northern Nigeria by Foster
and Mundy (1961).
Chromosome number
2n = 22.
Main references
Reynolds and Pedley (1981), Gillett, Polhill and Verdcourt |
