Other Names: Jequirity/Crab's Eye/Paternoster Pea/Love Pea/Precatory Pea/Prayer Bead/John Crow Bead/Coral Bead/Red Bead Vine/Country Licorice/Indian Licorice/Wild Licorice/Jamaica Wild Licorice/Akar Saga/Coondrimany/Gidee Gidee/Jumbie Bead/Ratti/Weather plant
Botanical Name: Abrus Precatorius
Family: Fabaceae
Native: Asia & Australia
 
This is a slender, perennial climber with long, pinnate-leafleted leaves on vines that twine around trees, shrubs, and hedges. Rosary Pea, as the name suggests, comes from the Pea/Bean family and is best known for its seeds, which are used to make rosaries and jewelry pieces, in percussion instruments, as measures of gold and in traditional medicine. In Jamaica, a tea is made of its leaves with honey to treat inflammations. In South India, seeds are treated and used to create aphrodisiacs using Siddha medicine techniques. Please know however that its seeds are extremely toxic because of the presence of abrin and cannot be used by laypersons. Ingestion of even a single seed, well chewed, can be fatal to both adults and children. It needs to be grown away from small children and pets. This plant grows very fast in full sunlight and has a tendency to become weedy and invasive.
 
***All our plants are organically grown without the use of any chemical fertilizers, fungicides or pesticides.