Bean

a well known cultivated plant which may be primarily divided into the garden bean and the field!bean. Of the former, there are numerous sub-varieties. The earliest is the mazagan, which is small seeded; while the largest is the windsor. The field bean runs into two leading sub-varieties, a larger and a smaller one. The navy bean is the common white bean used as an article of diet. The word is also applied to any leguminous plant resembling a bean, though not of the genuine genus. Such, for example, as the Florida bean, which is the seed, not the fruit, of a West Indian plant. These seeds are washed up on the Florida shore, and are sometimes used as food, and sometimes they are polished and used as ornaments.