Rutgers Gardens, New Brunswick, NJ - USA

Pisum is a genus of the family Fabaceae, native to southwest Asia and northeast Africa. It contains one to five species, depending on taxonomic interpretation; the International Legume Database (ILDIS) accepts three species, one with two subspecies [1]:

Pisum sativum (the field or garden pea), is domesticated and is a major human food crop.

Pisum species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Bucculatrix pyrivorella, Cabbage Moth, Common Swift, Ghost Moth, Hypercompe indecisa, The Nutmeg, Setaceous Hebrew Character and Turnip Moth.

The Pisum sativum flower has 5 sepals (fused), 5 petals, 10 stamens (9 fused in a staminal tube and 1 stamen is free) and 1 subsessil carpel.

Vicia is a genus of about 140 species of flowering plants commonly known as vetches. It is in the legume family (Fabaceae). Member species are native to Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa. Some other genera of their subfamily Faboideae also have names containing "vetch", for example the vetchlings (Lathyrus) or the milk-vetches (Astragalus). The broad bean (Vicia faba) is sometimes separated in a monotypic genus Faba; although not often used today, it is of historical importance in plant taxonomy as the namesake of the order Fabales, the Fabaceae and the Faboideae. The tribe Vicieae in which the vetches are placed is named after the genus' current name. Among the closest living relatives of vetches are the lentils (Lens) and the true peas (Pisum).

The Fabales are an order of flowering plants included in the rosid group of the eudicots in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription, this order includes the families Fabaceae or legumes (including the subfamilies Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae, and Faboideae), Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts (including the families Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and Surianaceae. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae. The other families treated in the Fabales by the APG II classification were placed in separate orders by Cronquist, the Polygalaceae within its own order, the Polygalales, and the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae within the Rosales.^{[citation needed]}

The Fabaceae, as the third-largest plant family in the world, contain most of the diversity of the Fabales, the other families making up a comparatively small portion of the order's diversity. Research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Polygalaceae are fairly well researched among plant families, in part due to the large diversity of the genus Polygala, and also due to members of the family, like the Fabaceae, being food plants for various Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species. While taxonomists using molecular phylogenetic techniques find strong support for the order, questions remain about the morphological relationships of the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae to the rest of the order, due in part to limited research on these families.

The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. One acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae.

This subfamily is widely distributed and members are adapted to a wide variety of environments. Faboideae may be trees, shrubs or herbaceous plants. Members include the pea, the sweet pea and the laburnum. The flowers are classically pea-shaped, and root nodulation is very common.

This is a partial list of garden plants, plants that can be cultivated in the garden, listed alphabetically by genus. See also list of plants by common name.