French Beans

[saddad]

I planted out some saved "Blue Coco" (HSL) which I have maintained for over a decade and found to my surprise that some of the plants have got red flowers instead of the usual blue/purple...



As far as I am aware there are no red flowered french beans... is this likely to be a physiological problem or a "sport" I've tagged some of the bunches to save the seed seperately and see if it is stable... i.e. do they have red flowers next year as well...

[saddad]

[ceres]

Interesting!  The flowers look quite uniformly red all over so I'd guess sport rather than problem but I'm no expert.  So a French Runner?  ;D Definitely worth saving the seed and seeing what you get next year.

[saddad]

They have a white/pale throat... not as pronounced as say "Painted Lady" runners...
:-\

[Jayb]

Wow what a beauty. Yes save seed, I'd love to know how you get on next year.
Is it a possibly a cross with Painted Lady?

[Digeroo]

Lovely.  Please do save as much seed as possible.  If there is a queue for some can I join?  I have really been wishing for a purple podded runner.

Is it likely that all the plants come from the same pod?

The new bean moonlight is a cross between a runner and a french but it was the result of breeding, did not know that it happened naturally. 

Mrs Lewis's  purple podded seems to me to have some feature of a runner with so many pods to a bunch.

[saddad]

Wow what a beauty. Yes save seed, I'd love to know how you get on next year.
Is it a possibly a cross with Painted Lady?

I do grow Painted Lady... but on another plot... more likely with another HSL French Bean like Madiera Maroon.  :-\

[goodlife]

I saw that on open day.. ;D..and it looks even better on real life. They really stand out odd colour for the french bean..couldn't miss it. Another one for the queue..if it should come into release.. ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

It sounds like a mutation. See whether it comes true!

[willsy]

Could it have been cross pollinated?

[Robert_Brenchley]

With what? I've never seen that colour in a French bean.

[galina]

With what? I've never seen that colour in a French bean.

Saddad, Looks like you have a cross with a runnerbean.  Blue Coco has a greater tendency than other beans to cross and a cross with a runnerbean and resulting red flowers has been reported elsewhere too.  The pods look quite different from Blue Coco too, they look green on your photo.

I had a runnerbean x French bean cross several years ago which is still genetically variable to this day.  The F1 generation (with the red flowers) produced only a handful of seeds, some were misshapen, most were black but a handful were coloured like Painted Lady, only smaller.  The F2 generation from these seeds displayed very unusual flower colours, such as apricot shades and also very long trusses.  Generations down the line, these colours are more muted and the red flower colour has never returned on that line.  But they are strong growing and very hardy.  When autumn gales have deleafed all other beans. these crosses will still give a very welcome late harvest.  It is worthwhile persisting with these crosses, even if the first generation hardly produces anything and everything after will be variable.  

[saddad]

Now the pods are maturing they are still very purple...  :-\

[GrannieAnnie]

Question: what's the difference between runner beans, French beans and what we call pole beans. I've grown an Italian Violetto purple pole bean which has purple flowers and stems. Is that the same as what you have in the picture?

[goodlife]

GrannyAnnie..nice too see you around.. ;)
Well..French beans come as bush and climbing sort..so I suppose what you call pole beans are climbing form or french beans.
Runnerbeans do climb as well..but the beans (the pods and the seeds) are very different to the 'french sort'.
'Runners' are Phaseolus coccineus and 'French' are Phaseolus vulgaris..different species.. ;)

[grannyjanny]

In the plant world does vulgaris mean common as in lots of?

[galina]

Question: what's the difference between runner beans, French beans and what we call pole beans. I've grown an Italian Violetto purple pole bean which has purple flowers and stems. Is that the same as what you have in the picture?

There are a lot of very confusing terms regarding beans on either side of the 'pond'.  Trying to make things a bit clearer ...

Pole bean or string bean is a term that is not very common in the UK, but much used in the US.  A bean that scrambles up a pole, a tall bean.  Could be any type - species - of bean.  

French bean in the USA is different from French bean in the UK too.  I believe this term is much less used in the USA and when it is used refers to beans that can be 'frenched' ie cut lengthways with a 'bean frencher' kitchen tool.  In the UK French beans refers to the species phaseolus vulgaris which as goodlife already said can be either short or tall growing.

Runnerbeans - again the word is used differently across the pond.  In the USA a runnerbean is one that 'runs up a support', ie a tall bean.  And I have heard some, mainly elderly, people in the UK also use the term runnerbean in this way.  But most UK folk speak of runnerbeans, when they mean the species phaseolus coccineus.  And there are tall and short varieties within this species too.

Runnerbeans (UK usage of the word ie ph coccineus), germinate with their seedleaves underground and UK usage French beans (ph vulgaris) sprout with their seedleaves out of the ground, either side of the stem.

Your Italian Violetto is what a Brit would call a French Bean, a ph vulgaris species bean.  Hope this makes things a little clearer.

[galina]

In the plant world does vulgaris mean common as in lots of?

Yes, according to Wikipedia. Or common as in the standard type.

[GrannieAnnie]

GrannyAnnie..nice too see you around.. ;)
Well..French beans come as bush and climbing sort..so I suppose what you call pole beans are climbing form or french beans.
Runnerbeans do climb as well..but the beans (the pods and the seeds) are very different to the 'french sort'.
'Runners' are Phaseolus coccineus and 'French' are Phaseolus vulgaris..different species.. ;)

Galina and Goodlife--thank you for the explanations. I now feel fully informed! You got me looking up more data on them and it seems we've confounded the terminology confusion in USA further  by also calling  runner beans: scarlet runner bean, Dutch runner bean, Case knife bean and seven year bean!

They also say they twine clockwise whereas the other beans go counterclockwise. I wonder would that be the opposite in Australia?  Anyway, those red flowers are certainly beautiful.