A beanstalk is the tall, climbing stem of a bean plant that grows upward by winding around supports like poles, fences, or strings. When you plant a bean seed in spring, it sends up a thin, green stalk that twists and climbs as it reaches toward sunlight. Gardeners often set up stakes or trellises for beanstalks to climb, which keeps the plants organized and makes the beans easier to pick.

The word became famous from the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk,” where a magical beanstalk grows impossibly tall overnight, reaching all the way to the clouds. In real life, some bean varieties can grow quite impressively too: pole beans might climb eight or ten feet high in a single summer, their beanstalks spiraling upward day by day. If you've ever watched time-lapse videos of plants growing, you've probably seen how a beanstalk can seem to move like it's searching, circling slowly until it finds something to grip and climb.