Pea
Pea
Food Plant
A climbing bean-family plant grown for its sweet seeds — famous as the plant Gregor Mendel used to discover the rules of inheritance.
💡 Fun Facts
- We grow peas for the sweet round seeds inside their pods, eaten fresh, frozen or dried.
- The plant climbs by sending out curly, coiling threads called tendrils that grip onto supports.
- A monk named Gregor Mendel grew thousands of pea plants and used them to discover the rules of inheritance — the start of genetics.
📅 Through the Year
- Flowering:May to July
- Fruiting:June to August
Name Story
Pisum sativum
means “the cultivated pea”
What does its name mean?
- Pisum — peaLatin, from Greek pison ‘pea’
- sativum — sown, cultivatedLatin serere ‘to sow’Decode this word →
Both words keep it simple: the first is the old Latin name for the pea, and the second means ‘sown’ or ‘cultivated’ — the pea we grow in our gardens. This is the very plant Gregor Mendel used to work out how living things pass on their features.