All plants are symbolically important in the novel, as the well-being of nature matches the well-being of the characters. Taylor is surprised to find an abundance of plants in the desert, just as she is surprised at the quality of her new life in Tucson. Taylor also sees flowers, like the night-blooming cereus flower, as good omens for her future. When she first starts talking, the only words Turtle speaks refer to vegetables, calling to mind the gardens in Tucson that are able to bridge the gap between man-made buildings and the wild bramble of nature.
Yet wisteria vines play a special symbolic role in their relation to Turtle’s character development. Wisteria vines (or “bean trees,” as Turtle calls them) are ugly looking plants at first, just as Turtle started the novel in a comatose, abused state. Yet the wisteria vines are also able to grow in poor soil where no other plants thrive. Turtle too comes back from her unfortunate infancy to become a vibrant little girl. At the end of the novel, Taylor learns that wisteria vines grow thanks to insects called rhizobia that create fertilizer for the plant. This mirrors the way that Turtle needed the support system of Taylor and their makeshift family in Tucson in order to grow.
Wisteria Vines (Bean Trees) and Plants Quotes in The Bean Trees
The The Bean Trees quotes below all refer to the symbol of Wisteria Vines (Bean Trees) and Plants. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 17
Quotes
The wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, is how I explained it to Turtle, but put them together with rhizobia and they make miracles.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Wisteria Vines (Bean Trees) and Plants Symbol Timeline in The Bean Trees
The timeline below shows where the symbol Wisteria Vines (Bean Trees) and Plants appears in The Bean Trees. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: The One to Get Away
...all the other, richer kids in her class. Marietta describes the bright colors of the flowers on their front porch, explaining that she and her mother both like to wear these...
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...that her 1/8 blood rights won’t amount to much. Furthermore, Taylor sees the lack of trees in the area as a special offense to the Cherokee religion, which believes that trees...
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Chapter 3: Jesus Is Lord Used Tires
...her “peculiar resume” from the odd jobs she had in Kentucky, including picking bugs off bean vines. Mattie laughs and goes to show Taylor the bean vines she has in a...
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Chapter 4: Tug Fork Water
...bus stop to her house, she stops at Bobby Bingo’s truck to look at the vegetables he is selling. His produce is better and cheaper than the grocery store, and Lou...
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Chapter 6: Valentine’s Day
The first frost of winter comes on Valentine’s Day and all of Mattie’s plants start to die. Taylor is saddened by this but Mattie is unfazed. Mattie says that...
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...a tractor tire in the shop, then pours the can of water out on Mattie’s bean plants. As Taylor wonders why the bean plants didn’t die in the frost as the...
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...soup she has made. Taylor imagines Lou Ann trying to find recipes that use the vegetables that Taylor brings home from Mattie’s garden and laments the fact that Lou Ann is...
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Chapter 7: How They Eat in Heaven
...unseasonably warm again after the one frost on Valentine’s Day. Mattie says that the summer wildflowers blooming before Easter is a sign from the Lord that they all need to go...
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...it happens, neither Lou Ann nor Taylor can make sense of Turtle’s true first word: Bean.
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Turtle speaks her first word, bean, while she and Taylor are helping Mattie in the garden. Taylor tries to explain the...
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Mattie suggests that Taylor take some beans home for Turtle to play with, and Taylor agrees (though she worries what Lou Ann...
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...sweet and sour chicken for the party, though she had originally planned to make navy bean soup in honor of Turtle’s first word. By now, Turtle has said so many new...
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Chapter 8: The Miracle of Dog Doo Park
...if her mother remarried. Lou Ann suggests that her mother should marry Bobby Bingo, the vegetable seller, so that Bobby and Turtle can talk vegetables all day.
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...winter, comparing it to the Bible story of striking water out of a rock. These flowers out of bare dirt are the Miracle of Dog Doo Park.
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...week. Turtle calls them Poppy and Parsnip, keeping up her trend of speaking solely in vegetables. Turtle greets Edna as “Ma Poppy,” just as she adds ‘ma’ to the beginning of...
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Leaving Turtle to page through a magazine looking for pictures of veggies, Taylor goes to tell the nurse that she can’t answer the questions about Turtle’s medical...
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Turtle interrupts Lou Ann and Taylor’s conversation to present Taylor a peanut she has dug out of the ground. Taylor tells Turtle the name for peanuts and...
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Uninterested in Lou Ann and Taylor’s conversation, Turtle delightedly feeds peanuts to a duck. Taylor leans back and listens to bird song in the trees, a...
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Chapter 10: The Bean Trees
Turtle interrupts their conversation to call the Wisteria vines “bean trees.” Taylor looks again and realizes that the wisteria seeds do look like bean trees.
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...starts to wonder why she really came. Taylor glances out the window at Lee Sing’s garden, then tells Esperanza that she has a beautiful name because it means hope in Spanish....
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Chapter 12: Into the Terrible Night
...desert, though she is not very good at remembering the names of the foreign, thorny plants that thrive in this arid land. Mattie reminds Taylor that all of the plants that...
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Chapter 13: Night-Blooming Cereus
...had been touched, but Taylor knows that Turtle is just treating the dolls like the plants she loves. Turtle and Taylor go to see Cynthia every Monday and Thursday, a harder...
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...finds Lou Ann and the kids at the park. Turtle is playing at making a garden, and Lou Ann is forcefully trying to stop Dwayne Ray from eating a purple jelly...
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...Edna have something to show the kids. On their porch are a bouquet of silvery-white flowers called night-blooming cereus. These flowers only open one night a year. Taylor had earlier noticed...
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Turtle walks up to one of the cereus flowers, which is as big as her head. Taylor kneels beside her and tells Turtle...
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The cereus flower seems to bode good weather for travel, as Taylor and Turtle go to meet...
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Chapter 17: Rhizobia
Turtle finds a picture of the wisteria vines she calls bean trees. The book says that wisteria vines actually thrive in poor soil thanks to a...
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