Beans

Bean is a common name for large seeds of several genera of the flowering plant family fabaceae (also known as leguminosae) which are used for human or animal food.
         Terminology
 The word "bean" and it's Germanic cognates (e.g Bonne) have existed in common use in West Germanic languages since before 12th century, referring to broad beans and other pod-borne beans. This was long before the new world genus phaselous was known in Europe. After columbian-era contact between Europe and Americas, use of the word was extended to pod-borne seeds of phaselous, such as the common bean and runner bean, and the related genus Vigna. The term has long been applied generally to many seeds of similar form, such as old world soybeans, peas, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), other vetches, and lupins and even to those with slighter resemblances, such as coffee beans, vanilla beans, castor beans, and cocoa beans. Thus the term "bean" in general usage can mean a host of different species.
   Seeds called "beans" are often included among crops called "pulses" (legumes), although a narrower prescribed sense of "pulses" reserves the word for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. The term bean usually excludes legumes with legumes with tiny seeds and which are used exclusively for forage hay, and silage purposes (such as clover and alfafa). According to the United Nations food and Agriculture Organisation. The term bean should only species of phaseolus, however enforcing that prescribtion has proven difficult for several reasons. One is that  in the past several species including Vigna angularis (adzuki bean), mungo (black gram), radiata (free gram), and aconitifolia (moth bean), were classified as phaseolus and later reclassified. Another is that it is not surprising that the prescription on limiting the use of the word, because it tries to replace word's older senses with newer one, has never been consistently followed in general usage.
                               Usage
Unlike the closely related pea, beans are a summer crop that need warm temperatures to grow-maturity is typically 55-60 days from planting to harvest. As the bean pods mature, they turn yellow and dry up, and the beans inside change from green to their mature colour. As a vine, beans plants need external support, which may be provided in the form of special "bean cages" or poles. Native Americans customarily grew them along with corn and quash (the so called Three Sisters), with the tall cornstalks acting as support of the beans.
  In more recent times, the so-called"bush beans" has been developed which does not require support and has all it's pods developed simultaneously (as opposed to pole beans which develop gradually).This makes the bush bean more practical for commercial production.