Mucuna Drift Seeds

A few days ago I was sitting on my front steps when I glanced down at the earth beside the path and noticed two rounded seeds about the size of a shilling (that’s a Belizean coin the size of a quarter). Polishing the dirt off, I realized there must be a mucuna liana (moo-COO-nuh lee-AH-nuh) somewhere overhead dropping seeds.

Mucuna flowers are pollinated by bats which transfer pollen from one plant to another as they sip the nectar. The hard seeds they produce have internal air pockets which cause them to float if they fall into streams, which disperses the seeds to new spots along the stream or river.    

There are more than a hundred species of Mucuna in the tropics, and the pods, hanging from long cord-like stalks, vary greatly. Most are covered with stinging hairs to deter vegetarian predators (and humans, too – those stinging hairs are n.a.s.t.y). The seeds come in many sizes, shapes and colorations, too. They’re called ojo de venada (eye of the deer) or ojo de buey (ox) by locals, and “sea beans” because they wash up on the beaches. I’ve heard gringos call them “hamburger beans” because some resemble mini-burgers. Lots more information can be found here. 

They’re super-hard and impervious to water, so ones that float downstream to the sea may drift around for months or years before landing on a beach where they can be collected by beachcombers and made into gorgeous necklaces and bracelets.  I’ve picked these drift seeds up on Atlantic and Pacific beaches from Belize to Costa Rica to Hawaii.

Although I eyed the trees above my walk carefully, I never spotted the big hanging pods I expected to see. I found the pod and flat seeds  in the picture above growing along the Macal River bank about five miles downstream near Cristo Rey. The seeds I found beside my walk look more like the reddish seed at bottom right. The other two seeds in the painting are from the beaches of Ambergris Caye (which, BTW, is pronounced Key, as in Florida Keys).