WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

 
 

With slender, branching, twining stems that can reach 4–12 feet long and with fibrous roots, this plant has been a valuable food and medicinal source in the Southwest for thousands on years. The highly drought-tolerant plant yields small high-protein, high-fiber beans. Note the palmately compound leaves with 3 leaflets, the pink pea-like flowers with a coiled keel in the center, and the slender pods with 5–10 small beans.


FLOWER: August–October, triggered by summer monsoon rains. Pink, purple to whitish flowers, 3/8 inch long (1 cm) in loose clusters of 2–5, usually blooming one at a time. Pea-like with one upper banner petal, two side or wing petals, and a distinctively twisted, whitish-green central keel of 2 petals. The calyx (sepals) cupping the flower base has 5 lobes or teeth. Note that Tepary bean pods are 1 1/4–2 3/4 inches long (3–7 cm) with 5–10 seeds (not 3–4).


LEAVES: Alternate, palmate with 3 leaflets, each 1 1/4–2 1/2 inches long (3–7 cm). Phaseolus acutifolius was previously divided into two varieties based on leaflet shape: var. acutifolius has 3 triangular, broad-based leaflets that taper to a slender-tip, blade 1 1/2–2 times longer than wide; var. tenuifolius has 3 narrow leaflets 2–10 times longer than wide, often with a small lobe on one or both sides of the base.


HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, loamy soils; brushy, rocky slopes, stream sides, ravines; desert grasslands and scrub; pinyon-juniper, pine-oak woodlands.


ELEVATION: 4,600–6,700 feet.


RANGE: AZ, NM, Trans-Pecos TX.


SIMILAR SPECIES: Easily confused with the Slimleaf Bean, P. angustissimus, a perennial in much the same range and habitat with a woody taproot, bean pods 3/4–1 1/4 inches long (2–3 cm), and with only 3–4 seeds (not 5–10). Long-leaf Cologania, Cologania angustifolia, in conifer forest habitats in much the same range, has 3 narrow leaflets but not a coiled keel.


NM COUNTIES: Western half of NM in low-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, McKinley, Rio Arriba, Sierra, Socorro, Valencia.

TEPARY  BEAN

PHASEOLUS  ACUTIFOLIUS

Legume Family, Fabaceae

Annual, herbaceous vine

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• Banner petal (upper arrow).

• Coiled keel petal (middle arrow).

• Wing petals (lower arrow).

• The 3 palmate leaflets are triangular with conspicuous veins.

• The form or var. acutifolius, (above) has 3 broad-based leaflets 1 1/2–2 times longer than wide that taper to a slender-tip.

• The var. tenuifolius has 3 narrow leaflets 2–10 times longer than wide, often with a small lobe on one or both sides of the base. and  1 1/2–2 times longer than wide.

Pods are constricted between beans and hold 5–10 beans that were important food for pre-Colonial inhabitants.