screw bean

noun

1. a tree, Prosopis pubescens, of the legume family, native to the southwestern U.S., bearing twisted pods used as fodder.
2. the pod itself.

Word History and Origins

Origin of screw bean¹

An Americanism dating back to 1865–70

Example Sentences

Screw bean Mexican buckeye Mexican ground plum Mexican persimmon Mignonette Mignonette family Milk weed family Mint family Mistletoe family Mockernut.

From Project Gutenberg

Almost any land that can produce a forest, and much that has been considered too dry for forest, can produce an annual harvest of value to man or his animals when we have devoted sufficient attention to the breeding of walnuts, chestnuts, pecans, shellbarks, acorn yielding oaks, beech nuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts, almonds, honey locust, mesquite, screw bean, carob, mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, and many other fruit and nut trees of this and other lands.

From Project Gutenberg

And man has left alone and practically unimproved for all these thousands of years nearly all the great engines of nature, the crop-yielding trees, such as the walnut, hickory, pecan, acorn yielding oak, chestnut, beech, pinenut, hazel, honey locust, mesquite, screw bean, carob, mulberry, persimmon, paw-paw, etc., because their slow growth has deterred us from any attempts at improving them.

From Project Gutenberg

By the fork of the creek where the shepherds camp is a single clump of mesquite of the variety called "screw bean."

From Project Gutenberg

By the fork of the creek where the shepherds camp is a single clump of mesquite of the variety called "screw bean."

From Project Gutenberg