sea pea

sea pea (plural sea peas)

1. A variety of pea ( Lathyrus japanicus) found on beaches.
   • 1758, Thomas Hale, A Compleat Body of Husbandry, page 389:

     In a time of great scarcity, the people about our coast found the sea pea in great plenty, and fed upon it.

   • 1963, Anthony Gishford, Tribute to Benjamin Britten on His Fiftieth Birthday, page 145:

     Growing between sea and land, so that it might almost be doubted in which element it is denizen, the Sea Pea, Lathyrus maritimus, turns up, very local, at various places on our southern and eastern coasts, and is known elsewhere throughout the British Isles only from a few stations in Wales and Ireland.

   • 2011, Joanna Trollope, Daughters-in-Law, →ISBN:

     The shingle itself – so much of it, so clean and smooth – the flatness, throwing the immense blue dome of the sky into even greater relief, the symmetrical mounds of blue-green sea kale, the creeping skeins of sea pea with its bright-purple flowers, the air, the space, the wind, it was all exhilerating...

   • 2018, Michael Ondaatje, Warlight, →ISBN, page 284-285:

     Mines had been placed along our beaches to proetect the country from invasion, and this resulted in an abundance of rough green carpets of sea peas with fat sturdy leaves, thanks to the lack of human traffic.

• beach pea