Botanical name – Phaseolus. lunatus

Family – Fabaceae

Collection site – Sec-64, S.A.S Nagar (Mohali)

Habitat – fast-growing annual herbaceous vine, that becomes weed in the wild. It rapidly colonizes degraded areas and nearby vegetation forming dense thickets in forests, along trails, riverbanks, or fences. The seeds are edible as green or in dry form. Beans are valuable in inter-cropping systems and are important nitrogen fixing systems.

Habit – herbaceous vine – a twiner

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Stem – pentagonal or cylindrical, puberulent

Leaves –  alternate, trifoliolate, leaflets with upper surface dark green, dull, glabrous, prominent venation; lower surface pale green or glaucous, glabrous

Inflorescence – racemes with off white flowers in groups of 2 per node of the inflorescence;

Flower –  white, irregular

Calyx – green, campanulate, odd sepal anterior

Corolla – white, papillioaceous corolla

Stamens – 10, diadelphous

Ovary – elongated, bearing uncinate hairs.

Fruit – an oblong-flattened pod (in the form of a half-moon). The pods are shelled to separate the  seeds which are reniform and flattened

Foldscope description – When the different parts were seen under a foldscope, anther lobes with mass of pollen, that were oblong . in shape with striations;  trichomes were seen on the leaflets

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Dr. Samriti Dhawan & Dr. Jasveen Dua, GGDSD College, Chandigarh