Interspecific Beans

Last October I blogged about beans that seemed to be crosses between Black Coco and Zolfino (Turin) drying beans and Black Magic Runner beans. Red flowered plants, presumably F1 crosses, appeared in both drying bean varieties in 2009 and yielded Runner bean type seeds (F2). There weren't many seeds and only seven of them germinated, of them only five flowered. All the F1 plants had red flowers but of the f2 plants one of the Zolfino crosses had pink and and the other white flowers. The three f2 black coco x plants had red flowers.

None of the pods had more than three beans and many had only one. One of the Black coco crosses was a climber. The rest were dwarf. Some of the plants are still green and the pods on the white flowered and beaned Zolfino cross plant have still not really ripened while one of the Black Coco plants was completely dry.

Bean promiscuity

A few red flowered beans turned up this year amongst the drying beans, Black Coco and what we call Turin (almost certainly fagiolo zolfino) and the green beans Tendergreen. The plants look intermediate between Phaseolis vulgaris, the commmon or 'French' bean and Phaseolis coccineus, the runner bean. The beans inside look like runner beans. So, I am wondering if these plants are hybrids. Last year all the vulgaris varieties were grown in the same garden as the Black Magic runner bean which has black seeds. Has anybody out there had any red flowered plants in their beans or know of any cases of these two species crossing?