Pea bean

Pea beans are several types of common food plants:

• a variety of edible common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) that has been recorded in Britain since the 16th century.^[1] The seeds are unusual in being strongly bicoloured – red-brown and white. The plants are a typical climbing bean. The beans are either eaten in the pod like French beans or they may be harvested when mature and eaten as other dried beans.^[2] Many seed catalogues list it as Phaseolus aegypticus^[2] - a name unrecorded in the botanical literature. There have been other assertions that it is a form of lablab but horticultural consensus places it simply as variety of Phaseolus vulgaris,^[3] closely related to French beans and haricot beans.

• In the USA the name "pea bean" is also used to describe small white common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris).

• The same name is used for Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis, also called yard-long bean and cowpea.^[4]

References

1. Gerard's Herbal 1597 -p.1040 -"The party coloured kidney bean of Egypt Phaseolus Aegypticus
2. Know your vegetables - Pea bean
3. Vaughan, J. G.; C. A. Geissler (1997). The New Oxford Book of Food Plants. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854825-7.
4. USDA GRIN Taxonomy, retrieved 27 June 2015