[Crown Copyright Reserved.] 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
No. 4] [1922 
XXI.—A REVISION OF CANAVALIA. 
C. V. Preer and §. T. Dunn. 
Early in 1920 Mr. C. V. Piper, whose work on the two 
Canavalias, the Jack Bean and the Sword Bean, is well known, 
asked for the assistance of Kew in clearing up one or two points 
of confused nomenclature in the genus as well as in a revision 
of the whole of Canavalia. Sir David Prain allowed Mr. S. T. 
Dunn (Assistant for India at Kew), to co-operate with Mr. Piper 
in this matter. The joint revision was to be published in America. 
This, however, has not proved convenient and at Mr, Piper’s 
request the Director has agreed to publish in the Kew Bulletin 
the part concerning the Old World species. The second part 
dealing with the Canavalias of the New World will appear later 
in an American periodical. 
anavalia, Adans. Fam. 325 (Canavali); DC. Mem. Leg. 
375; Benth. in Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. i. 537, Deser. 
Benth. addenda. Calyx tubuloso-campanulatus. Vexillum basi 
bicallosum; stylus imberbis vel raro apice hirtellus. Legumen 
nonnunquam endocarpio papyraceo separabili. 
Species circiter 50 in regionibus calidioribus utriusque orbis 
crescentes. 
CANAVALIAS OF THE OLD WORLD. 
Early botanical history. The first botanist to publish 
descriptions and figures of these plants was Rheede, who, in 
1688, included in his Hortus Malabaricus the three species that 
grow on the coast of Malabar. He described the cultivated 
C. gladiata under the name Bara-mareca (Hort. r. viii. 
t. 44), the sea-shore C. podocarpa as Catu tsjandi (t. 48) and the 
large-podded C. turgida as Catu-baramareca (t. 48). Nearly 
half a century later Kaempfer (Amoen. 836) alluded to C. gladtata 
as cultivated in Japan under the name of Natta mame. In 
1747 Rumphius wrote his Herbarium Amboinense and with 
very indifferent figures and descriptions referred to C. rosea 
A 
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