Lablab purpureus
(hyacinth bean)

Preferred Common Name

• hyacinth bean

Other Scientific Names

• Dolichos bengalensis
• Dolichos lablab
• Lablab niger
• Lablab vulgaris SAVI

International Common Names

• English: lablab bean
• Spanish: dolico lablab
• French: dolic lablab; dolique lablab

Local Common Names

• Brazil: cumandiata; labe-labe
• Cuba: frijol caballero
• Germany: Faselbohne; Helmbohne; Schlangenbohne
• Italy: dolico lablab; fagiolo indiano

EPPO code

• DOLLA (Dolichos lablab)

• Domain: Eukaryota
•     Kingdom: Plantae
•         Phylum: Spermatophyta
•             Subphylum: Angiospermae
•                 Class: Dicotyledonae
•                     Order: Fabales
•                         Family: Fabaceae
•                             Genus: Lablab
•                                 Species: Lablab purpureus

A bushy or a climbing and branching, pubescent herbaceous perennial, often grown as an annual, up to 6 m tall, with a well-developed tap root with many laterals and well developed adventitious roots. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate; leaflets broadly ovate, 5–15 x 4–15 cm, entire, subglabrous or soft hairy. Inflorescences stiff axillary racemes with many flowers; peduncle 4–23 cm long, often compressed, glabrescent; rachis 2–24 cm long; flowers arising 1–5 together from tubercles on rachis; pedicels short, square, sparsely pubescent; flowers white, pink, red or purple; stamens diadelphous (9 + 1); ovary sessile, 10 mm long, finely pubescent; style abruptly upturned, 8 mm long; stigma capitate, glandular. Pods variable in shape and colour, flat or inflated, 5-20 x 1–5 cm, straight or curved, usually with 3–6 ovoid seeds of varying colour and size.

Other Botanical Information

The variability of lablab is great: many cultivars exist, and many subclassifications of the species can be found in the literature. Some distinguish subspecies, others varieties. For cultivated plants, the distinction of cultivar groups seems most appropriate.

• Cultivar group Lablab (widely distributed): mature seeds with the long axis at right angles to the suture; pods dehiscent or indehiscent; seeds not longer than one third to one quarter of the width of the mature pod.
• Cultivar group Ensiformis (South-East Asia, East Africa): mature seeds with long axis more or less oblique to the suture, nearly filling the mature pod; pods indehiscent; when young, difficult to distinguish from cultivar group Lablab.
• Cultivar group Bengalensis (South Asia, East Africa): mature seeds with long axis parallel to the suture, more or less filling the mature pod, gibbous dorsally and at base; pods indehiscent.

Category	Sub-Category	Habitat	Presence	Status
Terrestrial

In South-East Asia lablab is popular as a vegetable and young leaves, flowers and pods of lablab are used as vegetables. The young fruits are eaten boiled like common beans or used in curries; immature green seeds are eaten boiled or roasted; leaves, young shoots and inflorescences are eaten boiled. In other parts of Asia, lablab is predominantly used as a pulse and mature seeds are consumed after cooking as dhal and sometimes used as a substitute for broad beans in the preparation of the fried bean cake tanniah. It should be emphasized that some types and cultivars require cooking before being eaten. Sometimes sprouted seeds are sun-dried and stored to use as a vegetable. Lablab is also used as fodder, hay, silage, green manure and as a cover crop. Protein concentrates can be made from seeds. It makes good silage and is used as green manure in soil improvement and often grown as a second crop in rice fields. Seeds and leaves are also used for medicinal purposes (Pratap and Kumar, 2011)).

Duke JA, 1981. Handbook of legumes of world economic importance. New York and London:Plenum Press,102-106.

Shivashankar G et al., 1971. Inheritance studies and breeding in Dolichos. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Subtropical and Tropical Horticulture, February 1972. Bangalore, India.

Skerman PJ, 1977. Tropical forage legumes. FAO, Rome. Plant Production and Protection Series No 2, 314-322.

von Schaaffhausen R, 1963. Dolichos lablab or hyacinth bean: its uses for feed, food and soil improvement. Economic Botany, 17:146-153.