Plantsgiving Proves Delicious.

• Author: Litvack, Emily
• Position: Plants commonly used in Thanksgiving meals

A few years ago, Mike Barker noticed a colleague--Chris Martine, chair in Plant Genetics at Bucknell University--using an interesting hashtag on Twitter: #plantsgiving. Martine was challenging fellow botanists across the country to document the number and scientific names of plants they used in their Thanksgiving meals. The winner of this game would be whoever reported the highest number.

Barker, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, and his wife Katrina Dlugosch, also an associate professor in the department, accepted the challenge. Together, the Barker Lab and Dlugosch Lab took second place, reporting 64 species.

Here, Barker names and discusses five of the most common plants featured in the typical Thanksgiving meal:

Green beans. Scientific name: Phaseolus vulgaris. Family: Fabaceae (legumes). Dish: green bean casserole.

The lowdown: P. vulgaris, known as the common bean, is a herbaceous annual plant, meaning it completes its life cycle within one growing season and then dies. Except for Antarctica, common beans are grown on every continent and are native to the Americas. From the common bean comes the green bean--tender pods plucked from this leafy plant before the plant's seeds develop.

Barker: 'Together with com and squash (including pumpkins), beans are one of the 'Three Sisters' of plants that originated in Mesoamerica and were grown together in companion plantings. As a legume that captures nitrogen from the atmosphere, beans add nitrogen to the soil that the other plants use."

Sweet potatoes. Scientific name: Ipomoea batatas. Family: Convolvulaceae (morning glories). Dish: sweet potato casserole.

The lowdown: The sweet potato is a modified root called a tuber of a perennial vine ("perennial" meaning it lives longer than two years). The vine, which is native to tropical regions in the Americas, bears heart-shaped leaves and flowers. The sweet potato tuber--where the plant stores nutrients--is long and tapered. A sweet potato with pale yellow flesh is less sweet than one with orange flesh.

Barker: "Although potatoes and sweet potatoes are both root vegetables, they are not closely related. Potatoes are closely related to tomatoes, tobacco, and peppers, whereas sweet potatoes are closely related to morning glories."

Corn. Scientific name: Zea mays subsp. mays. Family: Poaceae (grasses). Dish: creamed corn.

The lowdown: Com, also called maize, first was domesticated by...