Peanut plants have one blooming flower at a time. The flower is mainly self-pollinated, but some types of bees help out sometimes too. The bloom will lower closer to the ground and once pollinated, will form a peg a week or two later, which will grow towards the soil and penetrate the earth. The peg (containing the ripening ovary) will then turn sideways/horizontal and enlarge into the peanut 🥜 we know and love. This is a subterranean fruit. In other news, peanuts are from central South America, and were brought to West Africa by the Spanish, and later from there to North America during the transatlantic slave trade. Peanuts were widely adopted by West Africans who had already domesticated the Bambara Groundnut, which is another nutritious legume that also grows underground fruits on pegs. In the US, George Washington Carver developed hundreds of products and regenerative agricultural practices using peanuts (as well as sweet potatoes, soybeans, black eyed peas, and more) as a way to help poor Southern farmers heal and prosper after the ravages of cotton production. #blackpeanut #arachishypogaea #peanutflower #seedkeeping #peanut #georgewashingtoncarver #seedsaving #legumes