N. ORD.—LEGU MINOS&. 51 
Tribe.—PHASEOLEA. 
GENUS.—PH ASEOLUS,* LINN, 
SEX. SYST.—DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA. 
PHASEOLUS. 
COMMON BEAN. 
SYN.—PHASEOLUS VULGARIS, LINN. 
COM. NAMES.—KIDNEY BEAN, WHITE BEAN, POLE BEAN, STRING BEAN; 
(FR.) HARICOT; (GER.) SCHMINKBOHNE. 
A TINCTURE OF THE DRIED SEEDS OF PHASEOLUS VULGARIS, LINN. 
Description.—This common cultivated annual herb grows to various heights, 
according to its form and the method of cultivation. Stem twining and twisted, or 
short and erect in the bushy forms. eaves pinnately trifoliate; /eaflets large, 
ovate, pointed, entire. florescence in solitary axillary racemes, the peduncle 
stout and shorter than the leaves. Ca/yx campanulate; ¢eeth 5, unequal, the three 
lower ones larger, cuneate, acute, the two upper merely apparent. Corolla papilio- 
naceous; 4eel circinate and somewhat spirally twisted; vexz//um entire or nearly 
so, notched at the apex; a/e pear-shaped, each furnished with a long claw and 
short incurved appendage. Stamens diadelphous ; _f/aments circinate, dilated at 
the base. Ovary stipitate, hairy; s¢yZe long, circinate, with a hairy margin; stigma 
pointed, hairy. /7c¢ a continuous, pendent, compressed, loculicidal, more or less 
falcate pod, polyspermous, and with cellular partitions between the seeds; seeds 
more or less reniform, cylindrical, or compressed ; /47/um small, oval-oblong, naked ; 
cotyledons thick ; radzcle incurved. 
History and Habitat—The Common Bean, so extensively cultivated as an 
esculent, was formerly supposed to have been introduced here from India, but 
Prof. Gray claims it a native plant, as the fruit and seeds were found in the tombs 
of ancient Peruvians at Angon, along with other purely native vegetables ; it is, 
however, probable that the plant is not indigenous north of Mexico. The Bean has 
been cultivated by the natives from remote aboriginal times, many varieties having 
become valuable to them then (as they are to us now) as a potage, both while 
green, legume and all, and the seeds alone when ripe and dried. No previous 
medical use is discoverable. 
% From the Latin phase/us, a little boat, the pod being somewhat scaphoid, 
