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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 19, 2011 18:39:01 GMT -5
Hi all,
Well I had a surprise yesterday. I can now add another legume to the list of ones that apparently carry the gene that gives green insides.......cow/crowder peas!. Last night I was fiddling around with a bag of black crowders (Vietnamese in orgin), that I had actually bought a couple of weeks ago but never gone through (I had bought a lot of senna that week as well, and by the time I had gone through that, It was too late and I was too knackerd to go onto the cowpeas. Whne going throgh them I idly peeled a few or rather bits of thier seed coats fell off (there really crackly) To my suprise a lot of them, in fact the majority are pale green inside. I'm beginning to think that, far from being a quirk of peas and lentils plus a few other legumes, the green gene may in fact be all but universal in the legumes, besides the above (and soybeans of course) Ive now seen green inside versions of chickpeas, grasspeas (the seed of Lathyrus sativus) Siberian pea shrub (Caragana arborescens) ad possilby lupini beans (though those were a bit damaged so it's hard to tell what was genetic and what was caused by light damage.)
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 20, 2011 7:57:19 GMT -5
If you ever need a new screen name, I suggest "Professor Green Genes".
Slightly off topic question, you mention "Lupini" beans? Are they related to the lupin wildflower?
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 20, 2011 9:37:45 GMT -5
Green chickpeas? Interesting. Do you cook your Siberian pea shrub 'peas?'
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 20, 2011 16:32:15 GMT -5
To mnjrutherford: as far as I know yes they are, Lupini beans are what was created when people bred some of the larger seeded Lupines (L.luteus is the most common, but similar things have been done to L. mutabilis and several other species) to have lower amounts of the toxins in the seed. They are mostly found in Medditerenian countries or places that have been colonized by mediterrenean countries. They usually sold pickled (though dried is also pretty common) and are popular as a beer snack (much as edamame is).
ottawagardener: I did not cook my siberian pea shrum seeds, for the simple reason they never came up! I simply noted when I plated the seed packet I had bough that one of the seeds was green inside (the skins had popped off). And since I found more interesting legumes in subseqent years (far more than I can ever grow) I never got around to trying again.
As for the green chickpeas theyre usually found in the "desi" (smaller harder) side of the chickpea family Actually most of the visual diversity seems to be on that side, the thiner skinned Mediterrean Kabouli type are much more visually homogenous. Their relative commoness is up for a little debate. You can buy whole 5lb bags of green chickpeas at many indian grocery stores. However I am not 100% sure whether these are fully mature green chickpeas, or brown chickpeas that have been picked immature and freeze dried. However I have a few chickpeas I gotten out of bags of brown that are a somewhat different shade of green (a bit greyer as opposed to the others which are very very bright green) and those are indubitably mature green. Someday It might be fun to see what kind of pattern you get when you mix greens with some of the other skin patterns chickpeas can get like "mossy" (small black patches all over the skin or "sticker" (not a color buy a genetic trait that causes little hard bumps to appear on the seed coat, so numerous and high that the chicpeas will stick to wooly clothing like velcro or beggars ticks.)
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Post by happyskunk on Apr 21, 2011 1:38:07 GMT -5
I'm growing some Lupine beans this year that I guess you are suppose to roast and use as a coffee substitute. Has anyone tried this? www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X9240 I'm also growing some green chickpeas I found on ebay. I'm calling them green gremlin peas. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 21, 2011 19:41:02 GMT -5
I'm growing some Lupine beans this year that I guess you are suppose to roast and use as a coffee substitute. Has anyone tried this? www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X9240 I'm also growing some green chickpeas I found on ebay. I'm calling them green gremlin peas. I look forward to hearing about your results. As I have done a little web reasear it seems that most of the dry green chickpeas actually are immature ones that have been dried. The fact that it sound like your have some actually growing argues well that they are true greens, though not defintive (after all full grown but still green and immature legume seed is somewaht viable. When the end of season we will know for sure, if the mature seed is also green they are green matures if they turn dark brown or black (the normal color for desi types) they were semi immature. |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 21, 2011 19:52:05 GMT -5
That is very interesting. Wild lupin flowers are among my favorites. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in getting them to grow around here. I'll have to put the beans on my "to be tried" list. What are the flowers like?
I've never tried the coffee thing, but I would be willing to. I'd like to try chicory as well.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 21, 2011 23:00:27 GMT -5
That is very interesting. Wild lupin flowers are among my favorites. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in getting them to grow around here. I'll have to put the beans on my "to be tried" list. What are the flowers like? I've never tried the coffee thing, but I would be willing to. I'd like to try chicory as well. Based on waht I saw online L. pilosus (the coffee one) has blue flowers while L. luteus (the one with the beans you eat) has (as one would expect from the species name) yellow ones. |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 22, 2011 6:01:57 GMT -5
Why would you expect L. luteus to have yellow flowers? Is that a trait that would be associated with edibility?
I never realized that lupines came in colors other than purples and dark blues until one day, in the Sierras, I observed a tiny ground cover sized lupin with white flowers. The spikes were less than an inch in length. It was a beautiful, tiny little thing compared with the huge deep purple, globular bushes whose spikes grow higher than my head around the Tehachipis. Those are the size extremes. Bay Area specimens are about a 2' more or less.
Then, when I went to Idaho for the first time, it was May, and the wild lupines there were yellow, pink, orange, I was amazed.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 22, 2011 7:21:50 GMT -5
Why would you expect L. luteus to have yellow flowers? Is that a trait that would be associated with edibility? I never realized that lupines came in colors other than purples and dark blues until one day, in the Sierras, I observed a tiny ground cover sized lupin with white flowers. The spikes were less than an inch in length. It was a beautiful, tiny little thing compared with the huge deep purple, globular bushes whose spikes grow higher than my head around the Tehachipis. Those are the size extremes. Bay Area specimens are about a 2' more or less. Then, when I went to Idaho for the first time, it was May, and the wild lupines there were yellow, pink, orange, I was amazed. that bit was due to some mistake on my part, I though that luteus meant something along the line of "yellow" (I looked it up and it actually means something closer to "wide") Actually if there is a flower color associated with increased edibility it would probably be white. For a lot of legumes white flowers (and more importantly white seed) is the goal, as seed lacking in the biochemical pathways that make the pigment often are the same ones that are lacking in the biochemical pathways that make the varios compunds that are toxic or ill tasting to us. It's by no means a universal rule but it is a sort of trend. It's probably why all but the oldest strains of field peas (excepting those bred recently from ancient strains by home garderners like those of us on the forum) usually have only dead white skins, or why the version of hyacinth bean that the people in india and china sometimes cook and eat does not have any traces of the color that gave the species it's name. |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 22, 2011 9:51:57 GMT -5
Wow. That is totally fascinating. This is the sort of thing that causes me to be in constant wonder and amazement regarding how "life" has been put together. Thanks!
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Post by raymondo on Apr 24, 2011 21:02:35 GMT -5
Luteus is latin for golden-yellow, according to the web site Botanical Epithets. 'Wide' would be latus or perhaps laxus.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 24, 2011 21:54:24 GMT -5
Luteus is latin for golden-yellow, according to the web site Botanical Epithets. 'Wide' would be latus or perhaps laxus. Oh so I was right to begin with. I must confess, I'm not really all that good with botanical latin. Oringally I assumed that it would be something I picked up in colledge (allow me to reprhase that, I believed it would be something I would HAVE to pick up in colledge, that is, I assumed that anyone taking a degree in biology would be required to take courses in biological Latin) However It turned out that most fully doctrinated members dont speak latin, and that that latin that is still needed is usually contracted out to those that do, with no stigma on the submitter. I still remember my astonishment the day I walked into my first meeting with my FA and saw that he had the same basic reference book of botainical latin as I had on my shelf back home. I'm afriad I looked up luteus after the message I got back, and the site I was on translated it as "plectrum" so I made a guess as to it's meaning. Looks like I was incorrect. Thanks for clarifying |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 25, 2011 6:40:15 GMT -5
Are you SURE you were incorrect and not just a tad bit sideways? I would love to know the name of your botanical Latin ref book. I could use a good reference book of that sort.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 25, 2011 10:01:48 GMT -5
Are you SURE you were incorrect and not just a tad bit sideways? Well, plectrum is defined as a device for playing an instrument (a guitar pick is tecnically a plectrum) So I thought they might be saying the flowers resembled plectra hence my wide guess I would love to know the name of your botanical Latin ref book. I could use a good reference book of that sort.[/quote] Oh, hsst......I'm not really sure I even still have it. I doubt it's still on my bookcase in my room (actually I'm sure it is not still there, thanks to one of my hobbies getting out of control, neither of the bookcases in my room have much of any books on them in English.......... or any other language I can read for that matter!) If it's anywhere it would be in the attic which is functionally the graveyard of lost things so little luck in finding it there, I thnk this is the same book. It doesnt look exactly like mine (mine was blue, and had a picture of a reddish camellia or peony on the cover and was hardback, but I got mine almost 12-15 years ago; it may have gone into reprint since then. www.amazon.com/Botanical-Latin-William-T-Stearn/dp/0881926272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303743396&sr=8-1 |
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