Botanical Description of Pea

Botany       

• The plant is a short lived, herbaceous annual, glaucous, which climbs by leaflet tendrils.
• The cultivars may be dwarf, semi-dwarf or tall.
• The root system is not strongly developed except taproot.
• The stem is slender, circular and weak.

Leaf of Vegetable Pea

• The leaves are pinnate with up to 3 pairs of leaflets and terminal branched tendril; stipules large and leaf-like, ovate; stiples absent; leaflets ovate, or elliptic up to 6 in number, entire with undulate margin.
• The flowers are solitary auxillary or up to 3 flowers per raceme; bracts very small; calyx oblique, lobes unequal; corolla white, pink or purple, keel short, incurved, obtuse, stamens diadelphous, filaments broad, anthers uniform; style falcate, flattened, bearded on inner surface, stigma minute, terminal. Pods swollen or compressed, straight or curved on short stalks up to 12-15 cm with as many as 10 seeds.

Flowers of Pea Plant		Pea Pods

• Seeds are angular or globose, 4-10 in number, smooth or wrinkled, no endosperm, green, grey or brown, sometimes mottled.
• Various growth stages of vegetable pea are:

              o Vegetative stage

              o Reproductive stages: It includes pre-bloom stages, bloom stage, pod initiation stage, pod filling and maturity stages.