Adzuki bean

Vigna angularis, the adzuki bean, is an erect to somewhat twining annual legume usually 30 to 90 cm tall, with slender, hairy stems. The leaves are trifoliate, the three ovate leaflets borne on long stalks and sometimes faintly lobed. Bright yellow pea-like flowers are clustered in short axillary racemes. The smooth, cylindrical pods are slender and somewhat curved, containing six to twelve small, oblong seeds with a conspicuous white linear hilum; the seeds are most often a deep glossy red, though buff, black, and mottled forms occur. Domesticated in East Asia, the adzuki bean has been cultivated for thousands of years in China, Japan, and Korea, where the sweet red seeds are a staple ingredient, and it is grown widely as a warm-season pulse.