Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Perennial herbaceous vine, from a thick woody taproot; stems slender and trailing, often branched, 15-100 cm long; herbage glabrous.

Leaves: Alternate and pinnately compound, with 3 leaflets per leaf; leaflets linear to broadly lanceolate, 2-6 cm long and 1 cm wide, often lobed at the base, creating a slight arrowhead shape.

Flowers: Purple to pink, in long-stalked racemes from leaf axils, with 2-5 flowers on most racemes; flowers about 1 cm long, with pea-flower morphology (papilionaceous); calyx 2-3 mm long, 5-toothed; corolla 6-10 mm long, mostly lavender to pink, the keel petal distinctly twisted and often yellow-tinged.

Fruits: Pods flat and falcate (curved into a shape similar to a half-moon), 2 cm long and 6 mm wide, glabrous to slightly pubescent; containing 2-3 seeds.

Ecology: Found on mesas, within trees and shrubs, from 3,500-7,500 ft (1067-2286 m); flowers May-October.

Distribution: AZ, NM, s TX.

Notes: Phaseolus species are characterized by being twining vines with tri-foliate leaves and flowers with a keel petal that is curled inward. The keys to this species are the fact that it is perennial, from woody rootstock; linear-lanceolate to broadly lanceolate leaflets, often with small lobes at the base, making them slightly arrowhead-shaped; the slightly pubescent to glabrous, half moon-shaped seed pods; the peduncles (stalks leading up to the lowest flowers in the raceme) less than 10 cm long; and most often 2 or more flowers or fruits on each raceme.

Ethnobotany: The whole plant was crushed and rubbed on a child's body as a strengthener.

Etymology: Phaseolus comes from phaselos, Greek for an edible bean; angustissimus means very narrow, alluding to the lon, narrow leaflets.

Synonyms: Phaseolus angustissimus var. latus

Editor: LCrumbacher 2011, FSCoburn 2015, AHazelton 2017