Fact of the week: Nuts about peanuts

It is a fact that peanuts are not nuts. They are actually legumes. (The legume family also contains Alfalfa.)  

Think peas. Except that legumes usually keep their fruits above ground. The peanuts flowers like the rest of the legume family. And then plunge the pods into the ground to develop. Geocarpy. 

A unique thing to note is that the peanut plant is still flowering even when some pods have already developed. This results in the need to harvest the peanut plant at the right time. Harvest too early and the majority of the pods are immature. Harvest too late and the ripe pods will be broken from their stalk and stay in the soil. So there is no perfect time to harvest the peanuts. There will be some immature pods in the best-case scenario.  

 It is also a New World crop. Like the other New World crop, chili, it has become a common food across several continents in five centuries. In Africa, there is a similar plant called the Bambara groundnut. It is a legume too.