Legumes (Fabales)

This group gathers Flowering Plants subcategory members belonging to the order Fabales, overwhelmingly the pea and bean family Fabaceae (Leguminosae), the third-largest family of flowering plants and, thanks to a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria housed in root nodules, among the most ecologically and agriculturally important. It spans towering rainforest trees, spiny shrubs such as gorse and the invasive kudzu vine, and the herbaceous food crops that feed much of the world, peas, lentils, soybeans and peanuts among them, together with forage and cover crops like clover and alfalfa and ornamental climbers such as wisteria and the jade vine. The five-petaled, often irregular pea-type flower, frequently with a broad banner petal and two smaller wing petals enclosing a keel, is the visual signature shared across this otherwise very diverse family, along with the characteristic pod, or legume, that gives the order its common name.