Weather at Bedford, Hanscom Field, MA - via NOAA's National Weather Service

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Potato bean


These pretty flowers belong to the groundnut - a common food source in colonial times, and probably in the early years of nationhood as well. Here is a bit of local information about them. They are a legume, but also have edible tubers - hence the name potato bean, which is the first name I learned for this plant. Other plants also go by the name groundnut, but this is the only one I know of in my region. I didn't find this info in any of the references I looked at, but the potato bean flower has a sweet, pleasant scent that is enhanced by the warm sun (as are most flower scents, I think). I wonder if these would grow in my yard? These are growing in some open land up the street from my house. Apparently they are pretty easy to transplant via the tubers, but I wonder if I have enough sun. Could be a good experiment...

1 comment:

Thanks for being patient - I don't moderate comments every day, but I will get to it!