Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Wild Bean. Ground-Nut
Apios tuberosa. Pulse Family.
Stem.--Twining and climbing over bushes. Leaves.--Divided into three to seven narrowly oval leaflets. Flowers.--Papilionaceous; purplish or chocolate-color, somewhat violet-scented; closely clustered in racemes. In late summer the dark, rich flowers of the wild bean are found in short, thick clusters among the luxuriant undergrowth and thickets of low ground. The plant is a climber, bearing edible pear-shaped tubers on underground shoots, which give it its generic name signifying a pear.