Vicia faba

Fava bean, broad bean, horse bean, Horse Bean

Family: Fabaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Fava bean is a naturalized annual found in coastal California regions including northern Coast, Sacramento Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, and southern California at elevations below 820 meters in disturbed areas like roadsides and gardens. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces white flowers with distinctive dark blotches on the wings, arranged in small clustered groups. Growing to 0.5 to 2 meters tall with an erect, nearly hairless stem, it develops a robust and upright habit. Its leaves feature 4 to 6 elliptic to narrowly ovate leaflets measuring 5 to 12 centimeters long, with toothed or cut stipules. The fruit develops as a long cylindrical pod 5 to 25 centimeters in length and 1 to 2 centimeters wide, often slightly constricted between seeds.

Habitat: Roadsides, garden escape

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 820 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRI, ScV, SnFrB, SCo, WTR, PR (exc SnJt)

California counties: Ventura, San Francisco, Butte, Santa Barbara, Orange, Alameda, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Napa, Humboldt, San Diego, Santa Clara, Yolo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.