Burn-mouth-vine

Rhynchosia minima, commonly known as least snout-bean, burn-mouth-vine or jumby-bean, is a slender, twining or trailing perennial herbaceous vine of the Fabaceae family with a pantropical distribution. The stems are wiry, pubescent and can reach about 1.2 metres in length, climbing through other vegetation by twining or sprawling along the ground. Leaves are alternate, pinnately trifoliolate on a slender petiole; the leaflets are ovate to rhombic-ovate, 1 to 3.5 centimetres long, often slightly three-lobed, with prominent venation and gland-dotted surfaces. Inflorescences are slender axillary racemes shorter to longer than the subtending leaves, bearing up to about fifteen small papilionaceous flowers; each flower is about 8 millimetres long with a bright yellow standard petal marked with purple to brown veins on its outer face. The fruit is a small flattened, sparsely hairy pod 1 to 2 centimetres long containing one or two hard, mottled seeds. It grows on roadsides, pastures, disturbed thickets, savanna and open woodland on a wide range of soils, and is reported as naturalised on every continent except Antarctica.