172 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
A twining vine with alternate, abruptly pinnate leaves; leaflets small, linear-oval, 
obtuse at apex and base, in 8 to 20 pairs; flowers pale purple to white, in axillary 
racemes; legumes oblong, compressed, containing 4 to 6 hard, glossy, scarlet seeds 
marked with a black spot. 
Very common in thickets throughout the island. Like many other leguminous 
plants it is very sensitive to changes in the intensity of light, the leaflets hanging 
down vertically at night, as though asleep, and rising with the dawn. These move- 
ments are also caused in a measure by the overclouding and clearing of the sky. 
When ripe the pods burst open, displaying the pretty, bright-colored seeds, which 
are very conspicuous in the tangled undergrowth of the forest. The plant is of wide 
distribution in the Tropies. It has evidently been introduced into Guam, where the 
native name “‘kolales”’ (also applied to Adenanthera paronina) is the Chamorro pronun- 
ciation of the Spanish ‘‘corales,”’ signifying strings of corals or beads.‘ Halom-tano”’ 
Signifies ‘‘in-land’’—that is to say, ‘‘growing in the forest ’’—an adjective specifying 
many plants to distinguish them from allied species growing in cultivation or on 
the seashore. 
In India the seeds are used by jewelers and druggists as weights, each seed weigh- 
ing almost exactly one grain. The plant derived its former specific name ‘ preca- 
torius”’ from the fact that rosaries are made of the seeds. The Germans call them 
‘* Paternostererbse.’’ In many tropical countries they are made into necklaces, 
bracelets, and other ornaments. 
The seeds, known in pharmacy as jequirity beans, contain two proteid poisons, 
which are almost identical in their physiological and toxic properties with those found 
in snakes’ venom, though less powerful in their effects.¢ In India the seeds are 
ground to powder in a mortar, into which the natives dip the points of their daggers, 
and the wounds inflicted by daggers thus prepared cause death. When a small 
quantity of the powdered seeds is introduced beneath the skin fatal results follow: 
less than 2 grains of the powder administered in this way to cattle cause death within 
48 hours. One of these poisons, called ‘“abrin,” is a tox-albumen. It is easily 
decomposed by heat, and in Egypt the seeds are sometimes cooked and eaten when 
food is scarce, though they are very hard and indigestible. The root has been used 
as a substitute for licorice. 
REFERENCES: 
Abrus abrus (1.) 
Glycine abrus L. Sp. Pl. 227538. 1753. 
Abrus precatorius L. Syst. ed. 12. 472. 1767. 
Abrus precatorius. Same as Abrus abrus. 
Abubo (Guam). See Argyreia tiliaefolia. 
Abutilon indicum. INDIAN MALLOw. 
Family Malvaceae. 
Local NAMES.—Malbas, Matbas, Malva (Guam); Cuacuacohan, Tabing, Yam- 
pong (Philippines). 
A low shrub with soft velvety leaves and orange-colored flowers, introduced into 
Guam and now common in waste places. Leaves cordate, somewhat lobed, unequally 
toothed or entire; calyx 5-cleft, without a leafy involucel; pedicels longer than the 
petioles, jointed near the flower; capsules truncate, ‘arpels 11 to 20, acute, truncate 
or shortly beaked. 
The plant is of wide tropical distribution. It yields a fairly good fiber, which 
might be used for cordage. Its leaves contain mucilage, and are used in India in the 
same manner as those of the marsh mallow in Europe. The seeds are laxative, and 
in India the root is used as a remedy in leprosy. 
REFERENCES: 
Abutilon indicum (L.) Sweet, Hort. Brit. 54. 1826. 
Sida indica L, Cent. Pl. 2: 26.1756; Amoen. Acad. 4: 324, 1759. 
“see Kunkel, A. J., Wandbuch der Toxikologie, p. 993, 1901. 
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