Grey nickerbean

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 Grey nickerbean  Caesalpinia bonducella

The grey nickerbean belongs to the Caesalpiniaceae family. 

The plants stand tall and are a bit like vines as they are intertwined with each other. They stand at around four feet but if they spread out and use surrounding plants and trees for support they they can grow to twenty feet.  

There are spines which are all over the stems and these spines can reach to more than 2 inches. The leaves are shiny and compound. There are five yellow flowers which are arranged in clusters on the leaves. The fruit grows inside the pods. The pods appear flat, for protection around the pod, there are spines. Inside the pod contains three hardened seeds. The colour of the seeds change depending where in the cycle they are, inside the pod they are green but as the pods start  to dry out the seeds become brown, this is when the pods open and the sun turns the seeds grey. 

The beans can be found around mainly around the coast and uplands. The nickerbeans are very accepting to many different environments from salty soils and flooding. 

The nickerbeans are native to Florida, but due to the distribution of floating seeds these trees are found all over the world from the West Indies to South-east Asia. 

Sms.si.edu, (2015). New Page 1. [online] Available at: http://www.sms.si.edu/IRLFieldGuide/Caesal_bonduc.htm [Accessed 5 Apr. 2015].