138 HISTORICAL NOTES ON 



dates from a period of very remote antiquity, for Professor 

 Targioui finds them mentioned by nearly all the ancient Greek 

 and Latin writers on Georgics, and their origin is difficult to 

 trace. Some of them, indeed, are but little altered from the 

 wild forms not uncommon in Italy ; but whether these be in- 

 digenous, or have become naturalised there in consequence of 

 their cultivation, remains doubtful. Taking them in the order in 

 which they are here mentioned : the Pea has been stated by 

 several authors to be a native of Italy, and Professor Targioui 

 admits this to be the case with the Jield jiea, ox ruhiglio (Pisum 

 arvense), but with most botanists, insists on the r/arden-pca, or 

 pisello (Pisum sativum), being a distinct species of unknown 

 origin. In this conclusion we cannot join ; all our cultivated 

 Pisums are surely referrible to one species, which is most 

 probably really indigenous only in the more eastern of the 

 districts, where it is now found apparently wild. 



Of the Haricots, or French beans, Fagioli (Phaseolese), only 

 two are mentioned as grown in Tuscany, both indigenous to and 

 introduced from East India, where the cultivated species are very 

 numerous.* One is our common Haricot, or French bean 

 (Phaseolus vulgaris), so well known in all civilised countries ; 

 the other is the Fagiolo del' Occhio (Dolichos melanophthalmus of 

 Savi), a mere variety of the Dolichos or Vujna Sinensis, much 

 cultivated in India and Egypt, but only very sparingly so in 

 Southern Europe, and entirely unknown in this country. 



The common Bean (Vicia Faba), has been vainly sought for in 

 a wild state. The vague indication of supposed habitats in Persia, 

 or on the shores of the Caspian, have not been confirmed by 

 modern researches. May it not, however, have had its origin in 

 the Vicia Narbonensis ? a species not uncommon in the Mediter- 

 ranean region from Spain to the Caucasus, and very much 

 resembling the Bean in every respect, except in the thinness of 

 the pod and the smallness of the seeds. 



* These, however, are not nearly so numerous as is generally supposed; 

 thus, the Phaseolus vulyaris includes at least eight of the commonly 

 ado2")ted species of modern botanists, the P. lunatus foui", the P. Max or 

 Munqo (which is either dwarf or climbing, like the P. vulgaris) five or six, 

 the P. Truxillensis three or four, Dolichos (or rather Viyna) Sinensis four or 

 five, Lablab vulgaris at least as many, Canavalia gladiata^ two or three, and 

 so on. This multiplication of species has not been owing entirely to the 

 considering as botanical species what are mere varieties of cultivation, but 

 in scvei-al instances it has arisen from the same varieties having been 

 received from Asia, Africa, and America, and separately described without 

 adverting to their common origin. 



