The hyacinth bean vine is covered with long racemes of pea-type deep pink flowers, followed by dark reddish-purple pods. A vine will quickly cover a post or arbor, and it’s beautiful both in flower and fruit. The plant is also known as lablab or Mochai Payeer or bataw. They are popular in India, Myanmar, Singapore, and the Philippines, where long tradition teaches the safe way to cook and eat them. Most writers in North America advise against eating the dried beans, because these traditional cooking methods are not well known here.
These vines grow in a manner that is very similar to the runner bean, although they are not related. The scarlet runner bean was first grown in the highlands of Central America, and it prefers to set its crop during cool weather. The hyacinth bean, on the other hand, comes from tropical Asia, and it likes the heat. The pods are edible when picked young, and are a common food in Asia, although they haven’t yet caught on her in North America as a food crop.
Thomas Jefferson was an avid collector of plants, and he preferred to grow this bean over an arbor, where the beans and flowers could be easily seen as you pass beneath the vine. Unfortunately, some varieties, especially those with white flowers, will not set flowers in climates that don’t have warm summers, unless the plants are grown inside a greenhouse. The purple-flowered varieties are recommended for northern gardens.
In their native habitat, the hyacinth bean is a short-lived perennial, but they’re grown as annuals in most gardens. If you want to save the seed for planting next year start seeds indoors early so they’ll be well-started by planting out time, after the last frost.
If you have children, or if the vines are planted on a fence where a neighbor’s child might be tempted to taste the pretty beans, you should remove the pods from the vines long before they have a chance to ripen. The toxin is more dangerous when the beans are consumed raw by small children because of the smaller body size, and symptoms of poisoning can include vomiting, labored breathing, and convulsions. However, if you treat the plant with respect, it will grace your garden and arbors with beautiful pink flowers and purple pods.
Source by Jonni Good