Is it a mini handbag? A tiny saddle? A giant hamburger for Lego people? The eye of a Colombian vulture? May I present the seeds with a thousand names...

Tyler and I were out sampling yesterday up at Fort Sherman, a field site right up on the Caribbean side of the Canal Zone. As we were driving along, we noticed an odd, spiky, bulbous pod dangling from a tree. After a lot of enthusiastic rock-hurling and stick-waving to try and knock them down from the tree, we succeeded in collecting a small sample...

Probably what Mr Diocles might've looked like...? (explorable.com)

Seabeans, sages, and shamans!

At first I thought that this is a legume seed in the genus Dioclea, which has quite a colourful backstory. Not only is it a genus of 'seabeans' (things that float downstream to the sea in order to disperse), they also have the common name 'vulture's eyes' after an apparent resemblance with, well, the eye of a local vulture. According to this website, the name Dioclea itself is supposed to honour a bloke called Diocles of Carystos, a bit of a whizzkid plant-namer of the ancient world.

However, there is very similar genus of legumes called Mucuna, and after a bit of rummaging around I've come to the conclusion that this is Mucuna mutisiana (we'll of course check this with an expert at identification at STRI). 

Not to be outdone by Dioclea, Mucana has a lot of quirk going for it too. It's also a seabean, and it's name apparently comes directly from indigenous languages. Some members of the genus are apparently popular amongst the spectacular Morpho butterflies you often see fluttering along trails. The diversity of random uses to which Mucuna has been put are almost ridiculous, including (if we trust Wikipedia here) possibly-hallucinogenic shamanic snuff, herbal remedies for Parkinson's, aphrodisiacs in India, a useful nitrogen-fixer for Guatamalan farmers, a 'cognition-enhancing' drug, and prank powder that makes you itch loads. Which is interesting, because if you'll excuse me, I now need to go and remove a very large number of tiny Mucuna spines from my hands.

STOP PRESS!

Stop press! An hour after writing that, I've just looked inside the pod of another Mucuna, and there was a small, dead scorpion inside... o_O The plot thickens...

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