Abrus precatorius

Abrus precatorius, commonly known asjequirity beanorrosary pea, is aherbaceousflowering plantin the bean familyFabaceae. It is a slender, perennial climber with long,pinnate-leafletedleavesthat twines around trees, shrubs, and hedges.
The plant is best known for itsseeds, which are used asbeadsand in percussion instruments, and which aretoxicbecause of the presence ofabrin. Ingestion of a single seed, well chewed, can be fatal to both adults and children.The plant is native to Asia and Australia.It has a tendency to becomeweedyand invasive where it has been introduced.
Abrus precatoriusis commonly known as jequirity,Crab's eye,or rosary pea,paternoster pea,love pea,precatory pea or bean,prayer bead,John Crow Bead,coral bead,red-bead vine,country licorice,Indian licorice,wild licorice,Jamaica wild licorice,olinda (In Sri Lanka/Sinhala),kundumani (inTamil),coondrimany,gidee gidee,Jumbiebead,ratti (in Hindi) / rettee / retty, or weather plant.
In Africa,Abrus precatoriusis known as Ojuologbo (Yoruba), Oto-berebere (Igbo), Idonzakara (Hausa) and Nneminua (Ib) in southwesternNigeriaand obirekuaiura inGhana.
Abrus precatoriusis a severelyinvasiveplant in warm temperate to tropical regions, so much so that it has become effectivelypantropicalin distribution. It had been widely introduced by humans, and the brightly coloured and hard-shelled seeds had been spread by birds. By the end of the twentieth century, it had been proclaimed as an invasive weed in many regions including some inBelize,Caribbean Islands,Hawaii,Polynesiaand parts of themainland United States. InFloridain particular, the plant has invaded undisturbed pinelands and hammocks, including the vulnerablepine rocklands.
OnceAbrus precatoriusplants have grown to maturity under favourable conditions, their deep roots are extremely difficult to remove, and the plants' aggressive growth, hard-shelled seeds, and ability tosucker, renders an infestation extremely difficult to eradicate and makes it very difficult to prevent re-infestation. Herbicides such asglyphosateare effective, but need skilled application if they are not to do more harm than good.
Thetoxinabrinis adimerconsisting of twoprotein subunits, termed A and B. The B chain facilitates abrin's entry into a cell by bonding to certaintransport proteinsoncell membranes, which then transport the toxin into the cell. Once inside the cell, the A chain preventsprotein synthesisby inactivating the 28S RNA of theribosome. One molecule of abrin will inactivate up to 1,500 ribosomes per second.
Symptoms are identical to those ofricin, except abrin is more toxic by almost two orders of magnitude; the fatal dose of abrin is approximately 1/75 that of the fatal dose of ricin (though the abrin in ingested seeds may be absorbed much more slowly than the ricin inRicinus communiseven if the seeds are chewed and the coat penetrated, allowing time for successful rescue efforts in at least some cases.) Abrin has anLD50of only 0.56μg/kg in mice, and Kingsbury lists a toxic dose in humans at 0.00015% body weight, or approximately 0.1 mg for a 150 lb human.Ingesting intact seeds may result in no clinical findings, as they can pass undigested through the gastrointestinal tract because of their hard shell.
This plant is alsopoisonous to horses.
Symptoms of poisoning include nausea, vomiting, convulsions, liver failure, and death, usually after several days.
The seeds ofAbrus precatoriusare much valued in nativejewelryfor their bright coloration. Most beans are black and red, reminiscent of aladybug, though other colors exist. Jewelry-making with jequirity seeds is rumored to be somewhat hazardous.  There are persistent reports that the workers who pierce the seeds in order to thread them can suffer poisoning or even death from a pinprick, but there seems to be little evidence. An online search found 265 scientific papers referring toAbrus precatorius, but not one of them dealt with occupational poisoning.
In Trinidad in the West Indies the brightly colored seeds are strung into bracelets and worn around the wrist or ankle to ward offjumbiesor evil spirits and "mal-yeux"—theevil eye. The Tamils useAbrusseeds of different colors. The red variety with black eye is the most common, but there are black, white and green varieties as well.
In December 2011 a recall was issued for bracelets made using jequirity beans sold by theEden Projectand other outlets in the UK.
The seeds ofAbrus precatoriusare very consistent in weight, even under different moisture conditions due to the water-impermeable seed-coat.Formerly Indians used these seeds to weigh gold using a measure called aRatti, where 8 Ratti = 1 Masha; 12 Masha = 1 Tola (11.6 Grams).
According to the 1898King's American Dispensatory,
An 1881 work by the District Superintendent of Police for British-occupiedBengaldetails the preparation and use of thesutarifor the killing of cattle and in at least six murder cases. A native, promised a reduced sentence for the poisoning of a fellow villager's bullock in exchange for his testimony, demonstrated the technique. First the outer shells of red or white seeds were cracked between stones, then the twocotyledonsfrom within thirty or forty seeds were soaked in water for ten minutes. These seeds were ground to a paste and rolled up into six sharp-ended one-inch cones, which were inserted into either end of three pieces of straw and "exposed to the moderate influence of the sun" to dry, whereupon they regained some of the original hardness of the seed. In this account, the sutaries were described as being these cones, entirely made up of the hardened seed paste. The dried cones were checked for sharpness, and if need be, whetted with a brick and re-set. Finally, to prevent softening, they were waterproofed by "burying them for a night in some sort of animal grease." For testing, which Major Ramsay asked to be done exactly like a surreptitious killing, the prisoner set two sutaries into a 1.5-inch wooden handle meant to be held in the hand by pressing them into a rag stretched over sockets in the wood. A wandering "Brahmanee bull" was procured, and the prisoner brought the sutari down in one direction and away in the other, so as to break off the cones inside the animal's flesh behind the horn, then pressed the skin over the broken ends leaving no obvious trace of the injury. This process was repeated with two more cones to the base of the animal's tongue. The bull died after 34.5 hours, leaving no visible trace of the sutaries but a small amount of pus at the wound site, whose swelling had mostly subsided by the time of death.
The 1890Pharmacographia Indicagives an account, based in part on the above work, describing the sutaris or suis (the terms being equivalent, depending on district, with the former based on the object's resemblance to the point of a cobbler's awl). It describes the sutaris as 3/4 inch long and weighing 1.5 to 2 grains, varying in color from dirty white to black, and describes the handle as 3 to 3.5 inches long and frequently made from two joints of bamboo wood, with sockets 1/4 to 3/8 inch deep and with the cavity exposed at one end for storage of additional sutaris. The weapons were sometimes made with the milky juice ofCalotropis giganteainstead of water, which was said to speed the effect, and were sometimes supplemented with metallic mercury, dhatura, aconite, and/or arsenic. It is added that "any attempt to withdraw the sutari by pulling at the pieces sticking out, invariably breaks it, a portion being left in the wound."  One man murdered by a single blow with a pair of sutaris died after three days; another, from whom the material had been successfully excised, died three days later of tetanus. The price of one of these killings was said to total 16.5 rupees; the killers were punished bytransportation for life.
Abrus precatorius, called "Gulaganji" in Kannada,kundu maniin Tamil,Guruvinda ginjain Telugu and 'Kunni kuru' in Malayalam, has been used inSiddha medicinefor centuries.  The white variety is used to prepare oil that is claimed to be anaphrodisiac.A tea is made from the leaves and used for fevers, coughs and colds.Seeds are poisonous and therefore are only consumed after heat treatment.The Tamil Siddhars knew about the toxic effects in plants and suggested various methods which is called "suththi seythal" or purification. This is done by boiling the seeds in milk and then drying them. Like withcastor oil, the protein toxin isdenaturedwhen subjected to high temperatures rendering it innocuous.
The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia' records that "The roots of this plant are used in India as a substitute for liquorice, though they are somewhat bitter. In Java the roots are considered demulcent. The leaves, when mixed with honey, are applied to swellings, and in Jamaica are used as a substitute for tea. Under the name of "Jequirity" the seeds have recently been employed in cases ofophthalmia, a use to which they have long been put in India and Brazil."
The plant is also used inAyurvedaand is said to promote hair growth. It is sometimes used as an ingredient in Indian hair products.
The leaves ofAbrus precatoriusare used by the indigenous communities of theWestern regionof Ghana as an anti-diabetic medicine.
A variety of pharmacological effects have been observed in rodents, but have not been demonstrated clinically in humans, including:
InRajasthan, India, Chirmi song is associated with this plant. There is also evidence that this plant has significant economic value to the traditionalZulupeople, due to the fact that it is a form of income for Zulu people that make and sell crafts that were made from the seeds of this plant.
During theTang dynasty,Wang Weiwrote a poem titled "One-hearted" (Xiāng Sī/ 相思), which most likely refers toAbrus precatoriusas a "red bean" (hóng dòu/ 红豆).
InMathura, India, the godVishnuandKrishnais associated with the seeds of the plant. Lord Krishna is sometimes depicted wearing the seeds on amala(rosary).