The Banks Florilegium is on display in Natures Powerhouse Interpretive and Visitor Information Centre in the Botanic Gardens, until the end of August, not to be missed!  One of the plants on display, collected by Banks and Solander in 1770 whilst on the Endeavour with Captain Cook, was the

Canavalia rosea or Beach Jack Bean, Beach-bean, jackbean , maunaloa, puakauhi, wonderbean, friol de playa, Mackenzie bean, is a pretty vine that trails along the beach sand dunes in the tropics. The thick, fleshy stem can grow to 6m or more in length. The foliage looks rather like a succulent.  It has compound leaves with three rounded, fleshy leaflets which fold up in the middle of the day. The flowers are pea flowers, purplish pink, A feature of the Fabaceae family, the legumes, the nitrogen fixers.

This plant flowers in summer and sporadically afterwards. The  original herbarium specimen collected, dried and pressed by Banks and Solander and now resides in the herbarium at the Natural History Museum in Britain!  Banks had the paintings by the artist on board, Sydney Parkinson, made into copper engravings in the 1700s and paid 10,000 pounds of his own money to do so!

In 1770 Captain Cook was the first Englishman to eat these Beans at Endeavour River. In 1788 Governor Phillip and his crew ate the seeds, but evidently they had tasted raw seeds for they were soon "seized with violent vomiting".

In 1845 Leichhardt recorded in his journal finding a bean which when roasted and ground was found to be a good substitute for coffee.

Canavalia rosea (Leguminosae/Fabaceae)

Line engraving by Gerald Sibelius after Sydney Parkinson (1770) and Frederick Polydore Nodder.

Joseph Banks and his party saw this species at: Bay of Inlets, Australia, Point Lookout, Bustard Bay (22 May - 24 May 1770), Palm Island, Australia (7 June 1770), Endeavour River, Australia (17 June - 4 August 1770)