| Vigna | |
|---|---|
|   | |
| Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) | |
| Scientific classification   | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae | 
| Clade: | Tracheophytes | 
| Clade: | Angiosperms | 
| Clade: | Eudicots | 
| Clade: | Rosids | 
| Order: | Fabales | 
| Family: | Fabaceae | 
| Subfamily: | Faboideae | 
| Clade: | Millettioids | 
| Tribe: | Phaseoleae | 
| Subtribe: | Phaseolinae | 
| Genus: | Vigna Savi (1824), nom. cons. | 
| Subgenera | |
| 
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| Synonyms [1] | |
| 
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Vigna is a genus of plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution. [2] It includes some well-known cultivated species, including many types of beans. Some are former members of the genus Phaseolus . According to Hortus Third, Vigna differs from Phaseolus in biochemistry and pollen structure, and in details of the style and stipules.
Vigna is also commonly confused with the genus Dolichos , but the two differ in stigma structure. [3]
Vigna are herbs or occasionally subshrubs. The leaves are pinnate, divided into 3 leaflets. The inflorescence is a raceme of yellow, blue, or purple pea flowers. The fruit is a legume pod of varying shapes containing seeds. [4]
Familiar food species include the adzuki bean (V. angularis), the black gram (V. mungo), the cowpea (V. unguiculata, including the variety known as the black-eyed pea), and the mung bean (V. radiata). Each of these may be used as a whole bean, a bean paste, or as bean sprouts.
The genus is named after Domenico Vigna, a seventeenth-century Italian botanist and director of the Orto botanico di Pisa. [5]
Root tubers of Vigna species have traditionally been used as food by the Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Territory of Australia. [6]
 
  
 The genus Vigna contains at least 90 species, [2] [4] [7] including: