This article refers to the broad bean plant. For Broadbean the company, see Broadbean, Inc.

Vicia faba, also known as the broad bean, fava bean, field bean, bell bean, or tic bean, is a species of bean (Fabaceae) native to north Africa and southwest Asia, and extensively cultivated elsewhere. A variety is provisionally recognized:

Although usually classified in the same genus Vicia as the vetches, some botanists treat it in a separate monotypic genus Faba.

It is a rigid, erect plant 0.5-1.8 m tall, with stout stems with a square cross-section. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 2-7 leaflets, and of a distinct glaucous grey-green color; unlike most other vetches, the leaves do not have tendrils for climbing over other vegetation. The flowers are 1-2.5 cm long, with five petals, the standard petal white, the wing petals white with a black spot (true black, not deep purple or blue as is the case in many "black" colorings,) and the keel petals are white. Crimson-flowered broad beans also exist, which were recently saved from extinction. The fruit is a broad, leathery pod, green maturing to blackish-brown, with a densely downy surface; in the wild species, the pods are 5–10 cm long and 1 cm diameter, but many modern cultivars developed for food use have pods 15–25 cm long and 2–3 cm thick. Each pod contains 3-8 seeds; round to oval and 5–10 mm diameter in the wild plant, usually flattened and up to 20–25 mm long, 15 mm broad and 5–10 mm thick in food cultivars. Vicia faba has a diploid (2n) chromosome number of 12 (six homologous pairs). Five pairs are acrocentric chromosomes and one pair is metacentric.