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Wikipedia / Vigna

Vigna is a genus of plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution. It includes some well-known cultivated species, including many types of beans. Some members of the genus were previously classified in Phaseolus. According to Hortus Third, Vigna differs from Phaseolus in biochemistry and pollen structure, and in details of the style and stipules.

Vigna is also commonly confused with the genus Dolichos, but the two differ in stigma structure.

Vigna are herbs or occasionally subshrubs. The leaves are pinnate, divided into 3 leaflets. The inflorescence is a raceme of yellow, blue, or purple pea flowers. The fruit is a legume pod of varying shapes containing seeds.

Familiar food species include the adzuki bean (V. angularis), the black gram (V. mungo), the cowpea (V. unguiculata, including the variety known as the black-eyed pea), and the mung bean (V. radiata). Each of these may be used as a whole bean, a bean paste, or as bean sprouts.

The genus is named after Domenico Vigna, a seventeenth-century Italian botanist and director of the Orto botanico di Pisa.

Uses

Root tubers of Vigna species have traditionally been used as food by the Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Territory of Australia.

Selected species

The genus Vigna contains at least 90 species, including:

Subgenus Ceratotropis

Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H. Ohashi—adzuki bean, red bean

Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper—black gram, black lentil, white lentil, urd-bean, urad bean

Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek—mung bean, green gram, golden gram, mash bean, green soy, celera-bean, Jerusalem-pea

  • Vigna radiata var. radiata (L.) Wilczek

  • Vigna radiata var. sublobata (Roxb.) Verdc.

Vigna reflexopilosa Hayata—Creole-bean

Subgenus Haydonia

Subgenus Lasiospron

Vigna vexillata (L.) A. Rich.—zombi pea, wild cowpea

Subgenus Vigna

Vigna membranacea A. Rich.

  • Vigna membranacea subsp. caesia (Chiov.) Verdc.

  • Vigna membranacea subsp. membranacea A. Rich.

  • Vigna monantha Thulin

  • Vigna racemosa (G. Don) Hutch. & Dalziel

  • Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.—Bambara groundnut, Congo goober, hog-peanut, jugo bean, njugumawe (Swahili) (sometimes separated in Voandzeia)

Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.—cowpea, crowder pea, Southern pea, Reeve's-pea, snake-bean

  • Vigna unguiculata subsp. cylindrica—catjang

  • Vigna unguiculata subsp. dekindtiana—wild cowpea, African cowpea, Ethiopian cowpea

  • Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis—yardlong bean, long-podded cowpea, asparagus bean, Chinese long bean, pea-bean

  • Vigna unguiculata subsp. unguiculata—black-eyed pea, black-eyed bean

Incertae sedisIncertae sedis

References