Katuray
Sesbania grandiflora · Vegetable hummingbird
- Names in the book
- Katuray, Tag.
- Colours
- flowerwhite, pink, red
- Native range
- Maritime Southeast Asia
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Grows in all sections of Luzon and Panay.
- Family
- Fabaceae, filed in the book under Leguminosæ. (Papilionaceæ.)
- Printed as
- Agati grandiflora, Desv. (Sesbania grandiflora, Pers.)
- Sources
- Page 88 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
The plant today
Sesbania grandiflora, common names vegetable hummingbird, katurai, agati, agastya, agasya, kathurumurunga and West Indian pea, is a leguminous tree of family Fabaceae native to Malesia, including Malaysia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. It is widely distributed globally in equatorial regions. The flowers are eaten in Southeast and South Asia.
Excerpt from “Sesbania grandiflora” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 54 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 12 provinces, most often Zamboanga del Norte (7), Lanao del Norte (2), Batanes (1), Ilocos Norte (1), Isabela (1), Laguna (1), Leyte (1), Mountain Province (1), and 4 more.
Counts from GBIF occurrence records, October 2026. They include planted trees and garden plants, and a province with no records may only lack collectors.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
The flowers are edible. They and the leaves are purgative and are given in decoction for this purpose, 30–40 grams to 200 of water. The juice of the flowers is a popular remedy in India, for migraine and coryza. The trunk bark is bitter and tonic.
Botanical description
A tree, 4–6 meters high, with drooping limbs; leaves long, very narrow, abruptly pinnate; many caducous leaflets, linear, elliptical. Flowers large, white, fragrant, in axillary racemes. Calyx bell-shaped with two indistinct lips. Corolla papilionaceous, white. Standard oval, a slight notch at the apex. Wings almost as large as the keel which is strongly arched. Stamens 10, diadelphous. Anthers uniform. Style and stamens equally long. Stigma a small head. Pod 1–2° long, linear, 4-sided, containing many oval seeds, separated by filamentous partitions.
Recent research
The most cited papers since 2022 that name this plant in the title, pulled from Europe PMC in October 2026. Titles are the authors' own and the findings have not been reviewed here.
- Green Synthesising ZnO Nanoparticle Using Sesbania grandiflora and Their Evaluation of Anti-diabetic Anti-advanced Glycation End Products and Cytotoxic Effects
- Computational identification of multi-target natural compounds from Sesbania grandiflora as potential therapeutic agents against Klebsiella pneumoniae
- Hepatoprotective effect of flavonoid rich fraction of Sesbania grandiflora: Results of In vivo, in vitro, and molecular docking studies