106 SOY BEANS IN BENGAL, BIHAR AND OKISSA. 



from plants grown at Calcutta from seed imported from the 

 Moluccas, and these plants were of the twining hairy type. 

 Wright and Walker Arnott (3) give the characters of the genus 

 Soja Moench as annual, erect, flexuose, very hairy, and they 

 mention only one species S. hispida Moench. In Bentham's (4) 

 account of the cultivated Glycine Soja (Sieb. and Zucc. ) the plant 

 is described as villous. From Hooker's (5) description of Glycine 

 Soja (Sieb. and Zucc. ), it would appear that he had examined only 

 the stout suberect type with membraneous leaves, represented in 

 the Sikkim Himalayas by the Nepali variety. Duthie and Fuller 

 (6) give an account of the cultivated plant under the name Gly- 

 cine hispida Moench, and describe it as an annual, covered with 

 ferruginous hairs, with stems stout, suberect, and climbing. Their 

 plate represents one of the hairy twining forms found in the 

 plains of India. Church (7) describes Glycine soja (Sieb. and 

 Zucc.) as a small suberect, trifoliate, hairy, annual and gives a 

 plate which probably represents one of the twining haiiy forms 

 commonly found in the plains. Prain (8) mentions Glycine 

 hispida Maxim as a suberect annual cultivated occasionally in 

 Western Bengal, and in another place (8a) states that a speci- 

 men of Glycine collected on the banks of the Ganges at Saheb- 

 ganj has long trailing stems, and " but for their hispidity might, 

 pass as representing the wild G. ussuriensis." 



Piper and Morse (9) come to the conclusion that the culti- 

 vated Soy Bean is Glycine hispida (Moench) Maximowicz, and 

 that its nearest relative is Glycine soja Siebold and Zuccarini (G. 

 ussuriensis Regel and Maack). They distinguish these two 

 species by saying that G. soja has more slender and more vining 

 stems, is less hairy, bears smaller pods and seeds and has smaller 

 flowers, the calyx lobes being shorter in proportion to the tube 

 than in G. hispida. They conclude that the best critical character 

 is the length of the flower, which is 3 to 5 mm. in G. soja and 

 6 to 7 mm. in G. hispida, but that if this character is used G. soja 

 is also a cultivated species. They consider that there is no good 

 reason why G. hispida may not have been derived from G. soja 

 by cultivation, the smaller flowers of the latter being the principal 



