Pea (Books)

Pea refers to a plant briefly mentioned in How to Train Your Dragon Book series.

Description
The term pea typically refers to the species Pisum sativum. They are related to beans and occur in the same Family - Fabaceae - which is known as the 'Bean Family', but can also be known as the 'Pea Family'.

Pea plants are annuals - living for one year or less from seed to maturation. Plants grow low to the ground or in vines. They have tendrils that grow outward then wrap around objects they encounter to support the plant. Fruits are long pods with several round, typically green seeds inside.

Peas appear to have originated around the Mediterranean and the Near East. It is possible historic Vikings encountered these plants, at a minimum through trade routes to Southern Europe and the Middle East.

Function
In the Book series, peas are mentioned as a way to illustrate intense green color.

In reality, peas are a food crop for humans. Pea seeds can be harvested immature or fully matured and dried for later use. The entire pod can be eaten as well, of certain varieties.

Peas are a type of legume - plants that have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots. As such, peas are commercially important at naturally replenishing soil nitrogen.

How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse
The intense green color of Doomfang eyes is described in depth, relating them to the color of green peas.

"It was as if all the green in the world, of peas, of grass, of spinach, of leaves, of beans and frogs, had been concentrated in that one eye and given it the intensity of pure green acid."

- Book 4