Pea beans are several types of common food plants producing

beans A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes thr ...

: * Pea bean may refer to a variety of edible

common bean ''Phaseolus vulgaris'', the common bean, is a herbaceous annual plant grown worldwide for its edible dry seeds or green, unripe pods. Its leaf is also occasionally used as a vegetable and the straw as fodder. Its botanical classification, alo ...

(''Phaseolus vulgaris'') that has been recorded in Britain since the 16th century. 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. Many seed catalogues list it as ''Phaseolus aegypticus'' - a name unrecorded in the botanical literature. There have been other assertions that it is a form of

lablab ''Lablab purpureus'' is a species of bean in the family Fabaceae. It is native to Africa and it is cultivated throughout the tropics for food.

but horticultural consensus places it simply as a variety of ''Phaseolus vulgaris'', closely related to French beans and haricot beans. * In the US, pea bean or white pea beans is also used to describe small ''white'' common beans (''Phaseolus vulgaris''). The term may be used for

navy beans The navy bean, haricot, pearl haricot bean, Boston bean, white pea bean, or pea bean is a variety of the common bean ('' Phaseolus vulgaris'') native to the Americas, where it was first domesticated. It is a dry white bean that is smaller than ...

, which came from the fact that the U.S. Navy relied heavily on these to feed sailors in the 19th century. These beans are considered to be healthy and are often used in pies and soups. *The same name is used for ''Vigna unguiculata'' subsp. ''sesquipedalis'', also called ''yard-long bean'' and ''cowpea''.

References

Phaseolus {{Phaseoleae-stub