Phaseolus vulgaris
Origin: Bernardo, Italy
Improvement status: Cultivar
Seeds per packet: ~15
Life cycle: Annual
From the town of Bernardo in northern Italy, this is a small bean, but it grows on mightily productive plants. It's also incredibly beautiful. The blue pigment is heat sensitive and degrades when the seeds ripen in hot weather, so seeds that ripen in hot weather will be more of a steel grey and those ripening during cooler weather will be a gorgeous sapphire blue (and the color is most vivid when the beans are fresh; like Lisa Bloodnick's 'Sacre Bleu' bean, they darken as they age). Very striking. Purple flowers. Pole type. Grown by Jason Andrzejewski in Columbus, Michigan.
