Mucuna pruriens is a tropical legume known as velvet bean and by other common names, native to Africa and Asia and widely naturalized. The plant is an annual, climbing shrub with long vines that can reach over 15 m in length. When the plant is young, it is almost completely covered with fuzzy hairs, but when older, it is almost completely free of hairs. The leaves are tripinnate, ovate, reverse ovate, rhombus-shaped or widely ovate. The sides of the leaves are often heavily grooved and the tips are acuminate. Both sides of young leaves have hairs. The stems of the leaflets are 2-3 mm long. Additional adjacent leaves are about 5 mm long.