Beans.

Picked a few beans today, you could almost mistake them for French beans.


Indian bean tree, Catalpa bignonioides .

 

How lovely.........long time since I've seen any of those.

 

So that’s what they look like, definitely bean like .

 

Totally different inside though, nothing like a bean in that respect, they contain lots of seed that are distributed by the wind.

 

No beans on toast tonight then .

 

@pete did you pick them just for the photo? Great size. Usually we leave them on the tree.

 

I just picked a few as I walked by them hanging on the tree in the park.

 

Maybe an interesting fact, not sure, but I have a small tree handbook from around 1980, its a good book for identification.
It states that Catalpa produces the beans but our summers are not long enough or hot enough to produce viable seed.

Either things have changed or the book is wrong, but I grew a plant from this trees seed two years ago.

 

They seed themselves in my flower beds in Dordogne.

 

Wonder whether my book is the same as yours @pete ? Trees in Britain ( Europe, North America). Published in 1978 by Roger Phillips.
It shows 4 Catalpa........ Indian Bean/Southern, Hybrid, Yellow and Western. Seed colour differs.
Not much help really

 

Probably different, I've come across Roger Phillips books though I think I might have one somewhere.
This is mine, a bit tatty now, but I still use it.

 

I think climate has changed enough to enable them to seed. I was just remarking today how different the plants are that I can confidently grow outside compared to when I started about 60 years ago ( 8 year old, trying to grow chrysanthemum Court jester from t & m seed catalogue!)