LEGUMINOS^E ROSACES 



319 



471. Phaseolus vulgaris. 



7. PHASfiOLUS. BEAN. 



Tender herbs, often twining, the flowers never yellow, and the pinnate 

 leaves of 3 leaflets: flowers usually in clusters on the joints of the raceme 

 or at the end of the peduncle, the keel (in- 

 closing the essential organs) coiling into 

 a spiral : fruit a true legume. 



P. vulg&ris, Linn. Common bean. 

 Figs. 282-3, 285-6, 471. Annual: twining 

 (the twining habit bred out in the "bush 

 beans ") : leaflets ovate, the lateral ones 472. Phaseolus 

 unequal-sided: flowers white or purplish, lunatus. 

 the racemes shorter than the leaves : pods narrow and 

 nearly straight. Probably from tropical America. 



P. lunatus, Linn. Lima lean. Fig. 472. Annual: 

 tall-twining (also dwarf forms): leaflets large: flowers 

 whitish, in racemes shorter than the leaves: pods flat and curved, with a 

 few large flat seeds. South America. 



P. multifldrus, Willd. Scarlet runner bean. Peren- 

 nial in warm countries from a tuberous root, tall-twin- 

 ing : leaflets ovate : flowers bright scarlet (white in 

 the "Dutch Case-knife bean") and showy, the racemes 

 exceeding the leaves : pod long and broad but not flat. 

 Tropical America; cultivated for ornament and for food. 



8. VlGNA. COW-PEA. 



Differs from Phaseolus chiefly in technical charac- 

 ters, one of which is the curved rather than coiled keel 

 of the flower. 



V. Sin6nsis, Endl. Cow-pea. Slack pea. Stock 

 pea. Fig. 473. Long-trailing or twining, tender annual: leaflets narrow- 

 ovate: flowers white or pale, 2 or 3 on the apex of a very long peduncle, the 

 standard rounded: pod slender and long, cylindrical : seed (really a bean 

 rather than pea) small, short-oblong. China, Japan; much grown South 

 for forage. 



XVII. ROSACE^E. ROSE FAMILY. 



Herbs, shrubs and trees, much like the Saxif ragacese : leaves 

 alternate, mostly with stipules (which are often deciduous): flowers 

 mostly perfect and polypetalous, the stamens usually perigynotis: 

 stamens mostly numerous (more than 20): pistils 1 to many: fruit 

 an akene, follicle, berry, drupe, or accessory. A very mixed or 

 polymorphous family, largely of temperate regions, of about 75 genera 

 and ] ,200 species. By some writers divided into three or four families. 



