Neustanthus is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the pea family Fabaceae and its tribe Phaseoleae.

Today it has been introduced and naturalized in a broad range of other wet tropical environments: Africa, Americas and Australia.

[8] N. phaseoloides prefers to is grow in ruderal situations, such as plantations of cocoa or banana, at low altitudes (often under 600 metres above sea level) in wet evergreen or monsoon forests.

[7] The above ground structure can grow up to 30 cm at day and often the steams can reach 20 m of elongation.

[8] The growing season goes from early spring to late fall in the subtropics and year-round in the tropics.

The colour ranges from mauve to purple and the dimensions are small and occur in scattered pairs on a raceme.

They have a particular squarish form with rounded corner (3 x 2 mm) and have also a black or brown colour.

[7] Successful growth was observed with a temperature between 22.1 and 27.4 °C, colder environment drastically reducing the development.

[7] After establishment, the plant starts to climb and build tangled mats of over a half meter.

[7] Neustanthus phaseoloides can become an invasive species when growing in tropical and subtropical habitats due to its fast growth, its wide seed distribution and its ability to fully cover other plants.

[10] Neustanthus phaseoloides is grown as a cover crop (often with centro and calopo [11]) in oil palm, rubber and coconut.

The main advantages of using N. phaseoloides as a cover crop is the comparable high nitrogen accumulation and the improvement of the soil structure due to its deep rooting system.

They found that good root development is attained under presence of P, Mg and Ca.

[14] As a legume N. phaseoloides can compensate for low N conditions by increasing symbiotic nitrogen fixation.

This also explains its well response to added P.[8] On poor soils 100 kg of P2O5 showed to bring benefital effect on the yield.

[11] The Inoculation of the seeds before sowing with Bradyrhizobium is advised for primary cultivated areas.

[8] The most important diseases are leaf spot (Pseudocercospora puerariae) and anthracnose (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides).

[15] This drought susceptibility is a problem as soon as grown in Tropical savanna climate with wet and dry seasons.

If the grazing pressure is too low it can dominate due to its fast growth and its climbing ability.

The yield of mixtures with N. phaseoloides can reach up to 23 tons per ha when grown under optimal conditions.

[19][20] Also the nutrient, protein (3.8%) and sugar (7.3%) content of the whole fresh plant (green part) is very high.