Leaf Shape: The leaves are trifoliate, with each leaflet being ovate to lanceolate, measuring about 1 to 3 inches long and 0.5 to 1.5 inches wide.
Leaf Venation: The leaf venation is pinnate, with a central midrib and secondary veins extending outward.
Leaf Margin: The margins of the leaflets are entire and smooth.
Leaf Color: The leaves are medium green in color.
Flower Structure: The flowers are papilionaceous, typical of the pea family, with a standard petal about 0.5 to 1 inch long and a keel that is shorter and curved. Both yellow and pink/purple flowers are present.
Flower Color: The flowers come in two colors, pink and yellow, on the same vine and often side by side. Individual pink and yellow flowers can also be found.
Fruit: The fruit is a legume pod, measuring about 1.5 to 4 inches long and 0.2 to 0.4 inches wide, containing several seeds. Young pods are green, but darken to brown as they age. Mature pods will split into two twisted halves.
Seed: The seeds are small, approximately 0.1 to 0.2 inches in diameter, and are round to slightly oval. They are gray-brown with fine hairs.
Stem: The stem is slender, twining, and somewhat hairy. Color ranges from green to purple-brown.
Hairs: The plant has fine, short hairs on the stems, leaves, pods, and seeds.
Height: The plant typically grows to a height of 1 to 3 feet long, with greater length possible in sandy soil along water and getting full sun.
Texas distribution, attributed to U. S. Department of Agriculture. The marked counties are guidelines only. Plants may appear in other counties, especially if used in landscaping.
One of the general rules of thumb when foraging is if you don't recognize the specific species of some bean-producing plant, assume it is extremely dangerous to eat. Well, woolly beans aka trailing beans are one you need to learn to identify because they are great food! The young, tender pods, from 1/2" to 1.5" inches long are a direct replacement for green beans and can be eaten raw or cooked. Woolly ban casserole, anyone?
As these pods continue to grow, their shell becomes rather tough and not very tasty. However, at maturity when the pods have turned brown but haven't split open, gather them up to collect the small hard bean seeds they contain. These seeds can be roasted and then eaten like granola, boiled like other hard beans, or used in any other hard bean recipe.
I really love Strophostyles helvola due to its ease in identification. It continues to flower on put out new beans all through the summer up until the cooler weather (50s and lower) appear. During this time, it will almost always have both the yellow and pink flowers. If you only see pink flowers, come back another day and check for new, yellow flowers. If no yellow, no eating!Buy my book! Outdoor Adventure Guides Foraging covers 70 of North America's tastiest and easy to find wild edibles shown with the same big pictures as here on the Foraging Texas website.
