Pueraria phaseoloides
| Pueraria phaseoloides | |
|---|---|
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| Flowers of Pueraria phaseoloides | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Subfamily: | Papilionoideae |
| Tribe: | Phaseoleae |
| Subtribe: | Glycininae |
| Genus: | Pueraria |
| Species: | P. phaseoloides |
| Binomial name | |
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Pueraria phaseoloides (Roxb.) Benth. |
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| Synonyms | |
Pueraria phaseoloides is a plant species within the pea family (Fabaceae) and its subfamily Faboideae. It is a promising forage crop and cover crop used in the tropics. It is known as puero in Australia and tropical kudzu in most tropical regions. It is closely related to other species in the genus Pueraria and it is crossable with the other species of Pueraria.
The name kudzu does not only refer to P. phaseoloides. It is also used for its close relatives Pueraria montana and P. edulis. P. phaseoloides has different scientific synonyms. Depending on the authors, it is possible that two different variation are citied: P. phaseoloides var. phaseoloides and the bigger and larger P. phaseoloides var. javanica.
Pueraria phaseoloides is indigenous from east or from southeast Asia. Today it has been introduced and naturalized in a broad range of other wet tropical environments: Africa, Americas and Australia. Preferentially P. phaseoloides is growing in ruderal situations, like in plantation of cocoa or banana, at low altitudes (often under 600 metres above sea level) in wet evergreen or monsoon forests.P. phaseoloides is capable to growth in a large soil spectrum. Acid soils are not a problem and the pH tolerance is between 4.3 and 8.
Pueraria phaseoloides is a deep rooting perennial herb, building a subtuberus. This devices allow to resist waterlogged soils and short periods of drought. The aboveground structure can grow up to 30 cm at day and often the steams can reach 20 m of elongation.P. phaseoloides is a twiner and climb over other plants or anthropogenic objects. The leaves are large trifoliate typical for Leguminosae. The single leaflets can have an oval or triangular shape. Their dimension can varying from 2 x 2 cm to 20 x 15 cm. The growing season go from early spring to late fall in the subtropics and the year round in the tropics. Flowers are typical for the Fabales order. The colour range from mauve to purple and the dimension are small and disposed in scattered pairs on a raceme. Mature pods of P. phaseoloides show a black color and hair coat. They are straight or slightly curved and can be sized from 4 to 11 cm. Each pod contains 10 - 20 seeds. This have a particular squarish form with rounded corner (3 x 2 mm) and have also a black or brown colour.
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Wikipedia