Physostigma

(Physostigma venenosum), whose hairy pod is very distasteful to the travelling skin: it was a “Mucuna urens.”

Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

An excellent article on the Calabar bean is: Holmstedt, B., The ordeal bean of Old Calabar: the pageant of Physostigma venosum in medicine, in Swain, T., ed., Plants in the Development of Modern Medicine, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1972.

The Serpent and the Rainbow Wade Davis 1985

= -- The bean of _Physostigma venenosum_ contains the alkaloid physostigmine or eserine, with the antagonistic alkaloid calabarine.

Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology

CALABAR BEAN, the seed of a leguminous plant, _Physostigma venenosum_, a native of tropical Africa.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various

_Physostigma venenosum_ of botanists, has had similar disastrous results, as we learn from the testimony of a missionary, the Rev. Hugh

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia James George Frazer 1897

Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum), whose hairy pod is very distasteful to the travelling skin: it was a "Mucuna urens."

Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

(_Physostigma venenosum_), once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints.

To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II A Personal Narrative Richard Francis Burton 1855