| Scientific Name: | Vicia faba |
| Common Name: | broad bean, fava bean |
| Family Name: | Fabaceae |
| Origin: | Africa |
| Hardiness Zone: | Zone 3: (-40 to -34 °C) |
| Plant Type: | Annual (true) |
| Mature Size: | 0.7 - 1.3m x 0.6 - 1.0m (height x width) |
| Habit: | Upright |
| Form: | Columnar |
| Texture: | Medium - coarse |
| Landscape Uses: | Urban agriculture |
| Exposure: | Full sun only if soil kept moist, Part sun/part shade |
| Soil or Media: | Well-drained |
| Leaves: | Compound, Alternate, Soft flexible, Pinnate venation, Glabrous, Odd-pinnate, Elliptic, Ovate, Entire |
| Flowers: | Flowers solitary, White, Apr-May |
| Fruit: | Legume, Green, Brown, Jun-Jul |
| Key ID Features: | |
| Habit stiffly upright with sturdy stems that are strongly ribbed and squarish in cross-section; leaves grey-green, pinnately compound with 2-7 sessile leaflets, tendrils lacking; flowers with 5 petals (1 standard petal white, the wing petals white with a black spot, and the keel petals are white); fruit a broad, leathery pod, green maturing to blackish-brown, with a densely downy surface, and containing 3-8 flattened seeds up to 15mm long. | |