The legume or bean family, including beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, clover, and many trees like acacias and redbuds. Members typically have compound leaves, flowers with a distinctive pea-like shape, and seeds in pods, often forming nitrogen-fixing partnerships with bacteria.
From Latin 'faba' meaning 'bean,' the type genus of this family. The family was formerly called Leguminosae, from Latin 'legumen' meaning 'things gathered,' referring to the harvestable seeds in pods.
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