• The lima bean plant, like all plants, has structures and systems that serve different functions so the plant can live, grow, and reproduce. Plants have basic environmental requirements that are unique to the niche it occupies within a biome, or community of organisms adapted to a particular place and set of environmental conditions. These requirements include temperature, light, water, air, nutrients, time, and space. Plant structure is dependent upon the conditions in which it has been bred to grow. Originally native to Central America, today, lima beans are grown throughout much of the United States.
  
  

Stems and Roots

• Described by Floridata as an herbaceous perennial, a lima bean plant has a soft green stem rather than a hard woody stem. A perennial plant can live for three or more years if conditions allow. The stems support the leaves and also contain xylem cells that move water and phloem cells that move nutrients through the plant. The roots of the lima bean offer support and anchor the plant in the soil. According to Steve Soloman of the Soil and Health Library, lima beans have a long taproot that grows up to 13 inches straight down and produces lateral roots that grow out in cone shape well below the surface of the soil. The roots take in water and nutrients from the soil. They also store food in the form of sugars and carbohydrates. Lima beans are nitrogen-fixing, which means that they can absorb nitrogen from the air through their leaves and send it to their roots for processing; as a result, they can live in nitrogen-poor soils.
  
  

Leaves

• The oval-shaped leaves of the lima bean plant grow in a formation made up of three leaflets. Photosynthesis takes place in the leaves; carbon dioxide and water in the presence of light energy and the green substance chlorophyll are converted into the food source glucose with a waste product of oxygen, which is released back into the air.
  
  

Flowers, Fruits and Seeds

• Lima bean plants produce small flowers in white, cream or yellow. Inside each flower are male and female parts. Pollination by insects and bats produces fertilized ovules that grow into lima bean seeds inside the ovary of the flower. The ovary is the fruit of the plant. In bean plants, the ovary grows into a pod that contains the growing seeds. Each seed is dicot, meaning there are two cotyledons, which Biology Online describes as rudimentary seed leaves that contain a food source for the embryonic plant as it germinates and begins to grow. The seed also has a rudimentary root, stem, and the beginnings of the first true leaves, which should all begin to function by the time the seed leaves have been depleted.