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My wife regularly orders seeds online. When these beans showed up they were labeled "star fruit," which is clearly wrong. She planted the beans in a raised bed and they did very well. The bean pods radiated from the stalk in a spoke-light manner, which is probably where the "star" moniker came from. Here is what those plants looked like. They were maybe two to three feet tall when we started harvesting the beans when they started to dry out.bean plants

Here are what the dried beans look like. They are an off-green color with a white stripe.

The Beans

I am reluctant to eat them without knowing what they are. What type of beans are these?

Niall C.
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Cary Jensen
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1 Answers1

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It looks like a member of the genus Vigna, which is the type of bean originating in the Old World, as opposed to the genus Phaseolus, the New World beans most western gardeners are familiar with (think runner beans).

Judging by the color, your beans look a lot like mung beans, although the growth habit of the seed pods is slightly different. But judging by the cultivar name, that may be what inspired the name. (And breeding of food crops is sometimes focused on easy handling as well, just think of the bush/dwarf beans that carry their pods above the foliage instead of hidden within.)

Please note that this post doesn’t say “it certainly is a mung bean”, only that there are strong indicators that it is. I recommend you check with the seed source and confirm before eating. If the seeds were explicitly marked was food crop, you should be fine.

Stephie
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  • Thank you for the answer. They certainly do look like mung beans. I will do a little more research before marking your answer as correct. – Cary Jensen Apr 07 '20 at 15:47
  • After looking up images of the plants, I can confirm that these are mung beans. Very nice. My wife is going to plant a crop of them and we'll enjoy eating the rest. As for confirming that the seeds are marked as food crop, that is not possible. The packaging is long gone. In addition, my wife orders seeds online from places in the U.S, but they almost always arrive from an international destination, like Hong Kong or Thailand. I wonder what our postal carrier thinks. – Cary Jensen Apr 07 '20 at 16:05
  • Looking at the picture, this are Mung beans,These may have come from India, this grows in India on large bases and one of the staple food. They easy to make sprouts. – Mansi Raval Apr 20 '20 at 20:07