Uniquely identifiable characteristics

Distinguishing Feature : The black and white markings on the wings (petals), with the black being very rare amongst wild plants.

No relation to : Flower

One of the very few wild flowers with black flowers (or at least black patches with purple splodges, on a white base).

Like all members of the pea family, the Broad Bean plant has the ability to fix nitrogen directly from the air in the soil, a remarkable feat most other plants outside the Pea Family lack. The biological nitrogen fixation is accomplished by synbiotic bacteria living in the nodules on the roots. These bacteria are sensitive to oxygen, requiring the absence of it. Plants in the Pea Family are therefore thus almost self-fertilising, not requiring additional nitrogen fertilizers.

The majority of plants that are not in the Pea Family that have nitrogen fixing bacteria are trees or shrubs, of which Sea-Buckthorn is one. Plants with nitrogen-fixing root nodules are called Actinorhizal.

GLYCOSIDES The seeds of Broad beans contain the toxins convicin (a mixture of glucosides of pyrimidines)lectins, and Vicioside. To a much lesser extent other parts of the plant also contain these toxins. Agriculturalist try to minimise the amount of toxins within the broad beans themselves by the cross-breeding of different varieties. Note the number of nitrogen atoms is high in relation to the number of carbon atoms for the pyrimidinone base. Vicioside (or Vicine) is the glycoside of a pyrimidinone. Within the body glycosides can easily lose the sugar molecule leaving the pyrimidinone naked. Vicine is toxic and causes the disease called favism but only in people who lack the enzyme GPDG (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) [an inherited condition]. Symptoms of favism include headache, dizziness, vomiting, fever and anaemia leading to possible death. Vicine, when devoid of the glycoside, seems to imitate an amino acid, but one that does not code for a protein; it is therefore called a non-protein amino acid (NPAA).

ACETYLENIC FURANOID Wyerone (and Wyerone Acid) are acetylenic furanoid ketoesters possessing a highly energetic triple bond, unusual but not unique in the plant kingdom. Naturally it is poisonous with anti-fungal properties. Although it is found within the shoots of Broad Beans, it is synthesized in greater concentrations by the plant in response to a fungal infection; it has anti-fungal properties. Wyerone is a phytoalexin (a microbial stress compound - something which is synthesized in response to an external biological attack).

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