[Cir. 124— DJ 



THE WILD PROTOTYPE OF THE COWPEA/ 



By Charles V. Piper, Agrostologist, in Charge of Forage-Crop Investigations. 



In a recent bulletin the writer has given an extended account of the 

 cultivated forms of Vigna known as cowpeas, catjangs, and asparagus 

 beans, all the data and conclusions being based on cultivated material.^ 

 In that bulletm the three were considered different species, namely, 

 Vigna sinensis, V. catjang, and V. sesquipedalis, but it is pointed out 

 that all can be crossed readily and that a perfect series of inter- 

 grades exists in respect to all characters. 



In a previous bulletin Mr. W. F. Wight ^ has gone into great 

 detail mto the early history of this same group, reaching the con- 

 clusion that they represent three distinct species and — 



That both Vigna sinensis and V. catjang originally came from the region including 

 and extending from India to Persia and the southern part of the Trans-Caspian district, 

 and that the Persians called one or both of them by the name ' ' lubia ' ' and applied that 

 name to V. sinensis in northwest India after their conquest of that region. The 

 cultivation of V. sinensis extended to China at a very early date, but the distribution 

 of at least one of the species with the name "lubia " has extended from the region of its 

 origin at the beginning of the Christian Era to Arabia and Asia Minor and had reached 

 some of the Mediterranean countries of Europe at about the same time, but did not 

 become known in Central Europe until the middle of the sixteenth century. 



One difficulty in accepting Wight's conclusion as to the original 

 habitat of the cowpea is the fact that no wild plant is known in the 

 region indicated that could in any likehhood be the wild prototype. 

 This difficulty is, however, paralleled by a similar one in the case of 

 maize, kidney bean, and other plants cultivated from remote an- 

 tiquity. Still earUer the subject had been discussed by Kornicke,* 

 who reached the conclusion that all the cultivated forms known as 

 cowpeas, catjangs, and asparagus beans represent but one botanical 

 species, Vigna sinensis, whose native habitat he befieved to be 

 central Africa. He based this opinion on specimens collected by 

 Schweinfurth, by Schimper, and by Kotschy, but enters into no 

 botanical discussion regarding the identity of the wild with the 



1 Issued May 3, 1913. 



2 Piper, C. V. Agricultural varieties of the cowpea and iramediately related species. U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 229, 160 p., 12 pi., 1912. 



3 Wight, W. F. The history of the cowpea and its introduction into .Vmerica. U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 102, pt. 6, p. 59, 1907. 



^ Komicke [Ueher von Apotheker Winter bei Gerolstein aufgefundene neue und seltenere Pfianzen.] 

 Verhandlungen, Naturhistorischer Verein der Preussischen Rhemlande, Westfalens und des Reg.-Bezirks 

 Osnabriick, Jahrg. 42 (F. 5, Jahrg. 2), Correspondenzblatt 2, p. 136-153, 1885. 



[Cir. 124] 29 



