THE WILD PEOTOTYPE OF THE COWPEA. 31 



color factors found in the numerous cultivated varieties, except 

 perhaps the "eye." The hybrids above mentioned have been made 

 partly with the idea of clearing up this point. 



The numerous cultivated forms of Vigna in Africa are mostly true 

 cowpeas, and about 40 varieties from Egypt, Sudan, Rhodesia, 

 Transvaal, British East Africa, and German East Africa have been 

 grown in comparative trials and are described in Bulletin 229 already 

 cited. In Angola occur cowpeas distinguished by having more or 

 less retrorse pubescence, especially on the stem. These have not 

 been grown in our trials, but excellent botanical material was col- 

 lected by Welwitsch, who considered the plant a distinct species, 

 Vigna macundi. Except for the small amount of pubescence, how- 

 ever, there is nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary cowpea, 

 Welwitsch ^ speaks of it as commonly cultivated and occasionally 

 spontaneous. About Golungo Alto, Angola, the native name is 

 "macundi" (plural) and "hcundi" (singular) both suggestive of 

 "kunde," the native name of the cowpea in German East Africa. 



The asparagus bean apparently is rare in Africa, only one lot, S. P. I. 

 No. 11091, from Abyssinia, having been secured. 



The catjang is not infrequent in Africa. In Bulletin 229 four 

 varieties from Abyssinia are described, and Schimper found it abun- 

 dantly cultivated near Humboldt Springs, Djur Land, Anglo-Egyptian 

 Sudan. From the wild cowpea the catjang differs mainly in having 

 the pods pale and smooth instead of dark and scabrous, but all inter- 

 grades occur. A form with pale, scabrous pods was collected by 

 Ehrenberg in cultivation at Gumfuda [Kunfuda], Arabia. In all 

 probability this is the same as the Egyptian plant named Dolichos 

 luhia by Forskal, also described as having scabrous pods. Similar 

 specimens have been collected in the Seychelles (I. Horn, No. 474, in 

 1874) and in Java (Surokarta, Horsfield). Such specimens also come 

 from Meslira el Zaraf, Sudan, with the mformation: "Eaten by cattle; 

 seeds eaten by natives during the year of drought; native name, 

 'Lubiet el Gazal.' " 



Besides the above-mentioned plants, all of which are undoubtedly 

 referable to Vigna sinensis, there occur in the southern half of Africa 

 other forms where relationship to the cowpea is less clear. 



The commonest of these is the plant known botanically as Vigna 

 triloba Walpers, which differs from the wild cowpea mainly in its 

 leaflets being almost always three lobed. Some of the labels mdicate 

 also that the plant is not a true annual, but from herbarium speci- 

 mens this can not be determmed. Unless there is a distinction in 

 the matter of life period or duration, Vigna triloha can not be kept 

 distmct from the wild form of Vigna sinensis by any character yet 



1 Hiem, W. P. Catalogue of the African plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61, pt. 

 1, London, 1896, p. 260. 

 [Cir. 124] 



