Calabar Bean

Calabar Bean (Physostigma renenosum), the Esere of the natives, also known as the Ordeal bean of Old Calabar, is a strong woody twining plant, with trifoliolate leaves and pendulous racemes of purplish flowers, closely related to the scarlet-runner beans, but differing in having a hood over the stigma, whence its name. The dark-brown pods are 6 inches long, and contain two or three kidney-shaped, blackish-brown seeds, each about an inch long. These are extremely poisonous.