I wondered about that too. Some of my IWK pods are drying on the vine, and when I shelled them I found all black in one pod, all purple/black in all the other pods, but no mix of color in a single pod. The vines are too tangled for me to be able to ascertain that the black pod came from a separate vine.

There is a heirloom bean that has different colors in each single pod. Maybe you will have a different color bean in that pod. Why not mark the flower cluster with a bit of yarn and see how it looks when you shell it out?

What variety is it and what are the flower colors? Also could it be that maybe one flower is sun-faded?

The heirloom I was thinking of is the Lynch Butterbean.

I haven't grown it yet but there is supposed to be different colors in each pod. Maybe the flowers are different colors too.

Here is a link that might be useful: More info here

Happy, the different colored flowers were on Uncle Steve's. At first I found a couple that were on a separate plant but then I found them on the same flower cluster. The best I can describe the colors are reddish purple/pinkish mauve and a bluish purple/light beige. These beans are isolated with a greenhouse on one side and a vine covered pergola on the other. I'll mark the cluster to compare the beans and seed later.

My own italian beans produce some almost solid colored seed and some with different swirly and spotted patterns, I've never taken note of the flower color or if they were in different pods though. This year I took all my almost solid colored seed and planted them separately but in the same location as the ones with the swirls and spotted seed. So far the beans look the same, maybe a little deeper color in the streaks on the beans themselves.

Annette

Your Italian/Aunti Vi is different from the Uncle Steve's right? I have the Italian/Aunti Vi but not the Uncle Steves. I'll check the Italians tomorrow for flower color.

Happy, yes the seed was almost a match but not quite, my seed is a sightly different shape. The flowers I've seen so far on my italian are reddish purple/pinkish mauve, quite a common color of a lot of bean varieties. All the other varieties other then the rice beans I'm growing this year are quite close together, I only want to save a few seeds from these so have bagged a few flowers and tagged the beans, the rest we're going to eat :).

uncle steves flower color should be that purplish pinkish color. i don't know if i have ever seen different color flowers on the same plant before, but then i'm not checking them that closely. i have had an occasional cross occur with yellow flowers on the whole plant. those beans have black vs purple coloring on them, and don't have the flavor or texture of the true uncle steve bean. it will be interesting to see if that flower produces a different bean from the rest of the plant.

keith

I went out and took a picture, these are the two colors I was trying to describe. I've marked these with a tag so I can compare the beans later on.

Since you mentioned it I checked bean blossoms and discovered that at least 4 varieties have both yellow and pink blossoms. The Mr Tungs has bright cadmium yellow/orange blooms and pink blooms, and the Austrian soup, one of the USDA birdseggs and one other, I think the Bosnian pole, has both pink and faded yellow blooms.

I'm not growing Mr. Tung's this year so I can't check, if my memory serves me right the flower color should be yellowish but not pink.

Annette

Some traits are temperature sensitive. Some are time sensitive. I've seen flowers that developed one day apart have different colors and the only thing I can see that was different is that one day was about 10 degrees hotter than the other. I've also seen bean flowers that change color as they age. Most get lighter in color turning from a pale pink or lavender to an almost cream color.

You can get some really interesting effects when the plant is a hybrid. I've seen up to 3 colors of flowers on them.

DarJones

Thanks for the explanation Dar, I have never paid too much attention to flower color before as I usually only grew two different varieties most years, three one year and these were all well separated. This year I'm growing Insuk Wang Kong in the same location as my Italians but they're not supposed to cross, Uncle Steve's are pretty much isolated, as were the rice beans. All the others are growing together in the patch these I've bagged flowers as they were forming on the ones I need to save a few seeds from.

Annette

Annette, what do you use to bag them?

Happy, I bought a roll of tulle ribbon, was going to make little bags but wanting to put them on as soon as I could see flowers forming I'm just cutting the length I need and staple it closed around the forming flowers, when the beans have formed I take them off and mark the beans with the little clips from bread bags.

Hey I had the same question! Thank you for the info!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, this is one I did this morning, I ran out of staples so, out sewing kit :).