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Mucuna pruriens is a tropical legume native to Africa and tropical Asia and widely naturalized and cultivated. Its English common names include velvet bean, cowage, cowitch. The plant is notorious for the extreme itchiness it produces on contact, particularly with the young foliage and the seed pods. Mucuna pruriens is well known by two Sanskrit names, Kapikacchu, which means "one starts itching like a monkey" and Atmagupta, which means "secret self," and hints at the therapeutic value of the seed concealed within the allergenic seedpod