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11: Auxiliary plants

Sesbania javanica Miquel

LEGUMINOSAE - PAPILIONOIDEAE

Sesbania aculeata (Willd.) Pers. var. paludosa (Roxb.) Baker, Sesbania paludosa (Roxb.) Prain, Sesbania roxburghii Merrill.

Cambodia: snaô. Laos: sanô:.

From India and China throughout South-East Asia to Australia.

Used as a green manure and hedge plant in wet areas. The leaves are used for forage and as a vegetable. In Cambodia flowers are prepared with sugar or salt and eaten.

Herb or subshrub, 1—5 m tall, softly woody at the base. Stem and leaves glabrous. Leaves with 10—30 pairs of leaflets; petiole very short; leaflets subopposite, linear-oblong, 0.5—4 cm x 2—7 mm, apex broadly rounded to truncate and mucronulate. Inflorescence a raceme up to 11 cm long with 5—14 flowers; pedicel 5—14 mm long; calyx tube 6—8 mm, teeth 2 mm long; corolla 2—3 cm long, orange-yellow with purple markings on the back of the standard. Pod flat cylindrical, 20—30 cm x 4—5 mm, with about 45 seeds. Seed globose-ellipsoid, 3.5—5 mm x 2.5 mm, greenish-olive to dark brown or blackish. In permanent swamps or along watercourses, up to 500 m altitude.

[8]Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr., R.C., 1963–1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. 647, 641, 761 pp.
[26]Burbidge, N.T., 1965. The Australian species of Sesbania Scopoli (Leguminosae). Australian Journal of Botany 13: 103–141.
[53]Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêt-nam [Flora of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam] (various editors), 1960–. Volume 1–. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Paris, France.
[62]Hacker, J.B., 1990. A guide to herbaceous and shrub legumes of Queensland. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Australia. 351 pp.
[101]Mansfeld, R., 1986. Verzeichnis landwirtschaflicher und gärtnerischer Kulturpflanzen (ohne Zierpflanzen) [Register of cultivated agricultural and horticultural plants (without ornamentals)]. Schultze-Motel, J. et al., editors 2nd edition, 4 volumes. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 1998 pp.
[170]Verdcourt, B., 1979. A manual of New Guinea legumes. Botany Bulletin No 11. Office of Forests, Division of Botany, Lae, Papua New Guinea. 645 pp.

M.S.M. Sosef & L.J.G. van der Maesen

Sosef, M.S.M. & van der Maesen, L.J.G., 1997. Sesbania javanica Miquel. In: Faridah Hanum, I & van der Maesen, L.J.G. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 11: Auxiliary plants. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea