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Lathyrus odoratus
Also called Sweetpea, Guisante de Olor
Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) is a fragrant annual climber from Sicily and southern Italy that grows 1 to 2 m tall on a support. Give it a sunny spot, cool conditions and a trellis, and cut flowers often to keep it blooming.
The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is a flowering plant in the genus Lathyrus in the family Fabaceae (legumes), native to Sicily, southern Italy and the Aegean Islands.
It is an annual climbing plant, growing to a height of 1–2 metres (3 ft 3 in – 6 ft 7 in) when suitable support is available. The leaves are pinnate with two leaflets and a terminal tendril, which twines around supporting structures and helps the sweet pea to climb. In the wild plant the flowers are purple, 2–3.5 cm (3⁄4–1+1⁄2 in) broad; they are larger and highly variable in color in cultivars. The blooms are usually strongly scented.
Sweet peas, native to Sicily and Sardinia, were first mentioned by the Franciscan monk and botanist Francesco Cupani in the Hortus Catholicus (1696). Cupani first studied medicine before entering the Franciscan order in 1681 at the age of 24. As a monk he continued to cultivate his interest in natural sciences and botany, particularly the study of the endemic flora of Sicily. In 1692, Cupani became the first Director of the botanic garden at Misilmeri, where he is believed to have cultivated sweet peas.
Cupani's scrambling sweet peas had small, short-stalked, bicolored flowers arranged in pairs and were sweetly scented. Cupani is believed to have sent seed to a number of botanists, including the English botanists Robert Uvedale in Enfield, and Jacob Bobart in Oxford, and the Dutch botanist Jan Commelin who published a description and illustration of sweet peas growing in Amsterdam.
Unlike the edible pea, there is evidence that seeds of members of the genus Lathyrus are toxic if ingested in quantity. A related species, Lathyrus sativus, is grown for human consumption but when it forms a major part of the diet it causes symptoms of toxicity called lathyrism.
In studies of rats, animals fed a diet of 50% sweet pea seeds developed enlarged adrenals relative to control animals fed on edible peas. The main effect is thought to be on the formation of collagen. Symptoms are similar to those of scurvy and copper deficiency, which share the common feature of inhibiting proper formation of collagen fibrils. Seeds of the sweet pea contain beta-aminopropionitrile that prevents the cross-linking of collagen by inhibiting lysyl oxidase and thus the formation of allysine, leading to loose skin. Recent experiments have attempted to develop this chemical as a treatment to avoid disfiguring skin contractions after skin grafting.
Angled pea · Yellow pea · Golden Pea · Red pea · Lathyrus fulvus · Everlasting-Pea · Caley pea · Beach pea · Perennial pea · Round-leaved vetchling · White pea · Grass pea
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sweet pea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
