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
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.