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Pisum sativum
Also called Garden pea
Pea (Pisum sativum) is a cool-season annual legume grown for its edible pods and seeds. Grow it in cool weather, sow as soon as the soil reaches about 10 °C, and provide support for climbing types.
Pea is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. The pea is native to the Mediterranean region and southwest Asia, and cultivated nearly worldwide.
Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name Pisum sativum in 1753 (meaning cultivated pea). Some sources now treat it as Lathyrus oleraceus; however the need and justification for the change is disputed. The name "Pea" is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), the seeds from several species of Lathyrus, and Sturt's desert pea (Swainsona formosa).
Some people experience allergic reactions to peas, with vicilin or convicilin as the most common allergens.
The wild pea is restricted to the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East. The earliest archaeological finds of peas date from about 10'000 B.C. Near East and Central Asia. In Egypt, early finds date from c. 4800–4400 BC in the Nile Delta area, and from c. 3800–3600 BC in Upper Egypt. In northern Europe, specifically Fennoscandia, findings of pea data back to 4000 BC. The pea was also present in Georgia in the 5th millennium BC. Farther east, the finds are younger. Peas were present in Afghanistan c. 2000 BC, in Harappan civilization around modern-day Pakistan and western- and northwestern India in 2250–1750 BC. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, this legume crop appears in the Ganges Basin and southern India.
Angled pea · Yellow pea · Golden Pea · Red pea · Lathyrus fulvus · Everlasting-Pea · Caley pea · Beach pea · Perennial pea · Sweet pea · Round-leaved vetchling · White pea
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article 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.
