Can English peas and ornamental sweet peas cross?

[Artichoke Lover]

English peas are one of my favorite things to grow and this year I wanted to try saving seed from them. But I’ll also be planting ornamental sweet peas on a nearby fence. I know sweet peas are poisonous. But what I don’t know
and can’t find any info about is whether or not they can cross pollinate. Which would result in poisonous plants. If I used seed saved from crosses. Does anyone know whether or not I should be concerned.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Don't worry. English peas are Pisum, sweet peas are Lathyrus. They're too far apart genetically to cross.

In theory, if you were growing Grass Pea (L. sativus) that might be able to cross (though I have never heard of it happening). But the English pea is safe.

 

[digitS']

Mendel found that peas were good choices for his experiments in genetics. My understanding is that they were especially suitable because of their strong tendency for self-pollination.

For me, with no training in horticulture, I'm really talking off the top of my head since I can't find anything on sweet peas and English peas crossing. (Mendel wasn't in England .) They are separate species.

The admonition that you see regarding planting them together is because someone may mistake one for the other and eat them. Since peas are so often harvested and eaten while a person is standing in the garden, I imagine that it might happen. With children, I think that we can be fairly sure of it.

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That is a risk yes, but it is not a significant one. Sweet Peas aren't THAT poisonous. You wouldn't want to eat bowls and bowls of them every day, but they aren't "one will kill you" level. And if you are talking about green pea pods, the risk is even less.

The only thing I might warn about is if the English Pea you are growing is an old soup variety with dark brown seeds. That's about the ONLY way I can see getting sweet pea and English pea seeds confused come harvest time. and even THEN English peas will tend to have MUCH bigger seeds than sweet peas will (by the time you are talking about an English pea with seeds small enough and dark enough to pass for sweet pea seeds, you'd probably be somewhere in the semi wild elatius subspecies, which aren't all that good to eat to begin with.

To summarize, you are almost certainly safe to plant with clear conscience.

Or if you are worried, plant a colorfully flowered English pea. A lot of the old soup peas are two tone purple and pink, some have salmon flowers, and some snow peas have scarlet ones.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Thank you! This means I shouldn’t have anything to worry about! And I’m the only one who does any harvesting until about July when our main crops come in so I’m not worried about someone accidentally eating them.

 

[thistlebloom]

Also sweet pea pods (Lathyrus) are pretty hairy. Not very appealing looking as a pick and pop in your mouth garden snack.

 

[897tgigvib]

As everyone says, nope, they won't cross.

But, there are peas that have traits that seem like crosses. They assuredly aren't though. Some of the snap or snow peas have flowers pretty, very pretty. "Golden Sweet" for example. Even lightly aromatic. And years ago I grew a field type pea that had pretty blue flowers. Also not any kind of cross.

I really love the pea side of the fabaceae family. It's wide ranging and diverse.