In Chinese, we call them “Xiang1Si1Dou4″, which means the bean of lovesick.  The scientific name is called Adenanthera pavonina.  The tree is known as Coral Tree, Red Sandalwood and Saga (in Malay).  The seeds are also called Circassian seeds.  It is a symbols of love for Chinese and there are some old Chinese poems that relate it to lovesick.

From Naturia site, I have learned that the seeds are toxic in raw, but they can be roasted or boiled before eating.  Long time ago, they were used for weighting gold in ancient India.  Amazing!!!.  A few of them make up 1 gram.

Does this arrangment look like the shape of Australia? :p

According to Baidu (a Chinese website), there are two types of beans that we called XiangSiDou.

1.  Adenanthera pavonina (this types),  it is also called peacock bean in Chinese.

2.  Abrus pectoralis (a.k.a rosary pea with black dot),  which is extremely poisonous.  I have never seen this type of bean before.

Both are called XiangSiDou although they are different but similar.  They can be strung into bracelets, and there have been cases of death by a finger-prick while boring the seeds for beadwork. - [from Wikipedia]  !!!  Dangerous.

SiewPeng and I have a love-shaped XiangSiDou.

I remember when I was a kid (earlier primary school), I have some saga seeds.  We called it something like “basaga” or something else at that time which I can hardly recall now.  I have to ask my brother what was the name that we called it at that time.  And I also cannot remember when did the seeds disappear from me, and thrown away but who.

Do you dare to eat them?  I don’t think we do, because what happen if it is not 100% cooked, and may still be poisonous.

Another fact about it is that its shell is very hard until it cannot germinate if it were not scratched (scarified), boiled for one minute, or dipped in sulphuric acid.

There should be no problem when it is swallowed without chewing, because its hard red skin cannot be digested usually.  However it is unsafe because you never know that if there is a small tiny micro hole on the seed.

The above are another batch of photos which were recently produced using my lightbox.