Legumes

A family of plants including many valuable food and forage species, such as peas, beans, soybeans, peanuts, clovers, alfalfas, and sweet clovers. In this data system, the term "legumes" includes pinto beans, navy beans, great northern beans, red kidney beans, dry lima beans, black beans, and other beans (blackeye, garbanzo, small white, small red, pink, cranberry, and other beans not elsewhere classified), plus dry peas and lentils.

List of edible legumes

• Pea -  seed of a pea plant used for food a leguminous plant of the genus Pisum with small white flowers and long green pods containing edible green seeds the fruit or seed of a pea plant

• Bean -  any of various edible seeds of plants of the family Leguminosae used for food any of various leguminous plants grown for their edible seeds and pods any of various seeds or fruits that are beans or resemble beans informal terms for a human head verb hit on the head, especially with a pitched baseball

• Guar -  drought-tolerant herb grown for forage and for its seed which yield a gum used as a thickening agent or sizing material

• Carob -  powder from the ground seeds and pods of the carob tree; used as a chocolate substitute evergreen Mediterranean tree with edible pods; the biblical carob long pod containing small beans and sweetish edible pulp; used as animal feed and source of a chocolate substitute

• Cicer -  chickpea plant; Asiatic herbs

• Cowpea -  sprawling Old World annual cultivated especially in southern United States for food and forage and green manure fruit or seed of the cowpea plant eaten fresh as shell beans or dried

• Lablab -  one species: hyacinth bean

• Lentil -  round flat seed of the lentil plant used for food widely cultivated Eurasian annual herb grown for its edible flattened seeds that are cooked like peas and also ground into meal and for its leafy stalks that are used as fodder the fruit or seed of a lentil plant

• Peanut -  of little importance or influence or power; of minor status  pod of the peanut vine containing usually 2 nuts or seeds; `groundnut' and `monkey nut' are British terms a young child who is small for his age widely cultivated American plant cultivated in tropical and warm regions; showy yellow flowers on stalks that bend over to the soil so that seed pods ripen underground underground pod of the peanut vine

• Soybean -  most highly proteinaceous vegetable crop known erect bushy hairy annual herb having trifoliate leaves and purple to pink flowers; extensively cultivated for food and forage and soil improvement but especially for its nutritious oil-rich seeds; native to Asia a source of oil; used for forage and soil improvement and as food

• Chickpea -  large white roundish Asiatic legume; usually dried Asiatic herb cultivated for its short pods with one or two edible seeds the seed of the chickpea plant

• Mesquite -  any of several small spiny trees or shrubs of the genus Prosopis having small flowers in axillary cylindrical spikes followed by large pods rich in sugar

• Snap pea -  variety of pea plant producing peas having crisp rounded edible pods

• Snow pea -  green peas with flat edible pods variety of pea plant producing peas having thin flat edible pods

• Tamarind -  large tropical seed pod with very tangy pulp that is eaten fresh or cooked with rice and fish or preserved for curries and chutneys long-lived tropical evergreen tree with a spreading crown and feathery evergreen foliage and fragrant flowers yielding hard yellowish wood and long pods with edible chocolate-colored acidic pulp

• Fava bean -  shell beans cooked as lima beans seed of the broad-bean plant

• Fenugreek -  aromatic seeds used as seasoning especially in curry annual herb or southern Europe and eastern Asia having off-white flowers and aromatic seeds used medicinally and in curry

• Lima bean -  broad flat beans simmered gently; never eaten raw bush or tall-growing bean plant having large flat edible seeds bush bean plant cultivated especially in southern United States having small flat edible seeds

• Mung bean -  erect bushy annual widely cultivated in warm regions of India and Indonesia and United States for forage and especially its edible seeds; chief source of bean sprouts used in Chinese cookery; sometimes placed in genus Phaseolus

• Split-pea -  dried hulled pea; used in soup

• Broad-bean -  Old World upright plant grown especially for its large flat edible seeds but also as fodder

• Green bean -  immature bean pod eaten as a vegetable a common bean plant cultivated for its slender green edible pods

• Pigeon pea -  tropical woody herb with showy yellow flowers and flat pods; much cultivated in the tropics small highly nutritious seed of the tropical pigeon-pea plant

• Pinto bean -  mottled or spotted bean of southwestern United States; usually dried

• Vicia faba -  Old World upright plant grown especially for its large flat edible seeds but also as fodder

• Adzuki bean -  bushy annual widely grown in China and Japan for the flour made from its seeds

• Glycine max -  erect bushy hairy annual herb having trifoliate leaves and purple to pink flowers; extensively cultivated for food and forage and soil improvement but especially for its nutritious oil-rich seeds; native to Asia

• Inga edulis -  ornamental evergreen tree with masses of white flowers; tropical and subtropical America

• Kidney bean -  large dark red bean; usually dried the common bean plant grown for the beans rather than the pods (especially a variety with large red kidney-shaped beans)

• Winged bean -  a tuberous twining annual vine bearing clusters of purplish flowers and pods with four jagged wings; Old World tropics

• Honey locust -  tall usually spiny North American tree having small greenish-white flowers in drooping racemes followed by long twisting seed pods; yields very hard durable reddish-brown wood; introduced to temperate Old World

• Cajanus cajan -  tropical woody herb with showy yellow flowers and flat pods; much cultivated in the tropics

• Asparagus bean -  South American bean having very long succulent pods

• Lens culinaris -  widely cultivated Eurasian annual herb grown for its edible flattened seeds that are cooked like peas and also ground into meal and for its leafy stalks that are used as fodder

• Lupinus luteus -  yellow-flowered European lupine cultivated for forage

• Apios americana -  a North American vine with fragrant blossoms and edible tubers; important food crop of Native Americans

• Cicer arietinum -  Asiatic herb cultivated for its short pods with one or two edible seeds

• Parkia javanica -  tall evergreen rain forest tree with wide-spreading crown having yellow-white flowers; grown as an ornamental in parks and large gardens

• Arachis hypogaea -  widely cultivated American plant cultivated in tropical and warm regions; showy yellow flowers on stalks that bend over to the soil so that seed pods ripen underground

• Lablab purpureus -  perennial twining vine of Old World tropics having trifoliate leaves and racemes of fragrant purple pea-like flowers followed by maroon pods of edible seeds; grown as an ornamental and as a vegetable on the Indian subcontinent; sometimes placed in genus Dolichos

• Lathyrus sativus -  European annual grown for forage; seeds used for food in India and for stock elsewhere

• Field pea -  coarse small-seeded pea often used as food when young and tender variety of pea plant native to the Mediterranean region and North Africa and widely grown especially for forage seed of the field pea plant

• Pisum -  small genus of variable annual Eurasian vines: peas

• Canavalia gladiata -  twining tropical Old World plant bearing long pods usually with red or brown beans; long cultivated in Orient for food

• Lathyrus japonicus -  wild pea of seashores of north temperate zone having tough roots and purple flowers and useful as a sand binder

• Phaseolus vulgaris -  the common annual twining or bushy bean plant grown for its edible seeds or pods

• Prosopis pubescens -  shrub or small tree of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico having spirally twisted pods

• Psoralea esculenta -  densely hairy perennial of central North America having edible tuberous roots

• Vigna aconitifolia -  East Indian legume having hairy foliage and small yellow flowers followed by cylindrical pods; used especially in India for food and forage and as a soil conditioner; sometimes placed in genus Phaseolus

• Parkinsonia florida -  densely branched spiny tree of southwestern United States having showy yellow flowers and blue-green bark; sometimes placed in genus Cercidium

• Phaseolus coccineus -  tropical American bean with red flowers and mottled black beans similar to Phaseolus vulgaris but perennial; a preferred food bean in Great Britain

• Prosopis glandulosa -  thorny deep-rooted drought-resistant shrub native to southwestern United States and Mexico bearing pods rich in sugar and important as livestock feed; tends to form extensive thickets

• Caragana arborescens -  large spiny shrub of eastern Asia having clusters of yellow flowers; often cultivated in shelterbelts and hedges

• Pithecellobium dulce -  common thorny tropical American tree having terminal racemes of yellow flowers followed by sickle-shaped or circinate edible pods and yielding good timber and a yellow dye and mucilaginous gum

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External links

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