Fagiolina del Trasimeno cowpea

(Vigna unguiculata)

A landrace native to the area around Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, in central Italy. Plants which happily fill a 5’/1.6m trellis are covered with flowers which daily perform a neat colour transformation: each afternoon the blossoms of the next day’s flowers swell, showing their yellow outsides; then when you return in the morning they have opened to reveal white or pale purple flowers which fall by afternoon, repeating the performance. Flowers are followed by clusters of long, thin pods which radiate from their stems like exploding fireworks, each filled with tiny seeds which may be white, burgundy, or mustard [real mustard, not the fast food kind] yellow. A Slow Food Ark of Taste variety. 95 days to maturity. 40 seeds/packet.