Pea

The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and develop from the ovary of a (pea) flower. The name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), and the seeds from several species of Lathyrus. Peas are annual plants, with a life cycle of one year. They are a cool-season crop grown in many parts of the world; planting can take place from winter to early summer depending on location. The average pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 gram. The immature peas (and in snow peas the tender pod as well) are used as a vegetable, fresh, frozen or canned; varieties of the species typically called field peas are grown to produce dry peas like the split pea shelled from a matured pod. These are the basis of pease porridge and pea soup, staples of medieval cuisine; in Europe, consuming fresh immature green peas was an innovation of early modern cuisine. A pea is a most commonly green, occasionally golden yellow, or infrequently purple pod-shaped vegetable, widely grown as a cool-season vegetable crop. The seeds may be planted as soon as the soil temperature reaches , with the plants growing best at temperatures of . They do not thrive in the summer heat of warmer temperate and lowland tropical climates, but do grow well in cooler, high-altitude, tropical areas. Many cultivars reach maturity about 60 days after planting. Peas have both low-growing and vining cultivars. The vining cultivars grow thin tendrils from leaves that coil around any available support and can climb to be high. A traditional approach to supporting climbing peas is to thrust branches pruned from trees or other woody plants upright into the soil, providing a lattice for the peas to climb. Branches used in this fashion are called pea sticks or sometimes pea brush.