Homotypic: Heterotypic: Mucuna is a genus of around 114 accepted species of climbing lianas (vines) and shrubs of the family Fabaceae: tribe Phaseoleae, typically found in tropical and subtropical forests in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, southern, southeastern, and eastern Asia, New Guinea, Australia, and the Pacific Islands.

The plants or their extracts are sold in herbalism against a range of conditions, such as urinary tract, neurological, and menstruation disorders, constipation, edema, fevers, tuberculosis, and helminthiases such as elephantiasis.

The most important is L-dopa, which the digestive system of most animals confuses with the amino acid tyrosine, causing the production of defective proteins.

Other antinutrients are tannins, lectins, phytic acid, cyanogenic glycosides, and trypsin and amylase inhibitors, although all these can be removed by long cooking.

[7] M. pruriens may also contain chemicals such as serotonin, 5-HTP, nicotine, and the hallucinogenic tryptamines 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenine and dimethyltryptamine,[7][8][verification needed] Mucuna is not traditionally consumed as a food crop, but some preliminary experiments have shown that if the antinutrients are removed or at least brought down to safe level, the beans can be fed to livestock or people.