PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 317 



who have collected in this region have sometimes come 

 across it, 1 but they do not- mention it in their writings, 2 

 excepting Ledebour, 8 and the quotation on which he 

 relies is not correct. Bosc 4 says that Olivier found the 

 bean wild in Persia ; I do not find this confirmed in 

 Olivier's Voyage, and as a rule Bosc seems to have 

 been too ready to believe that Olivier found a good 

 many of our cultivated plants in the interior of Persia. 

 He says it of buckwheat and of oats, which Olivier does 

 not mention. 



The only indication besides that of Lerche which I 

 find in floras is a very different locality. Munby 

 mentions the bean as wild in Algeria, at Oran. He 

 adds that it is rare. No other author, to my knowledge, 

 has spoken of it in northern Africa. Cosson, who knows 

 the flora of Algeria better than any one, assures me he 

 has not seen or received any specimen of the wild bean 

 from the north of Africa. I have ascertained that there 

 is no specimen in Munby's 5 herbarium, now at Kew. 

 As the Arabs grow the bean on a large scale, it may 

 perhaps be met with accidentally outside cultivated plots. 

 It must not be forgotten, however, that Pliny (lib. xviii. 

 c. 12) speaks of a wild bean in Mauritania, but he adds 

 that it is hard and cannot be cooked, which throws 

 doubt upon the species. Botanists who have written 

 upon Egypt and Cyrenai'ca, especially the more recent, 6 

 give the bean as cultivated. 



This plant alone constitutes the genus Faba. We 

 cannot, therefore, call in the aid of any botanical analogy 



at St. Petersbnrgh. It is in flower, and resembles the cultivated bean 

 in all points excepting height, which is about half a foot. The label 

 mentions the locality and its wild character without other remarks. 



1 There are Transcaucasian specimens in the same herbarium, but 

 taller, and they are not said to be wild. 



2 Marschall Bieberstein, Flora Caucaso-Taurica ; C. A. Meyer, Ver- 

 zeichniss ; Hohenacker, Enum. Plant. Talysch ; Boissier, Fl. Orient., 

 p. 578, Buhse and Boissier, Plant. Transcaucasia. 



3 Ledebour, Fl. Ross., i. p. 664, quotes de Candolle, Prodromus, ii. p. 

 354 ; now Seringe wrote the article Faba in Prodromus, in which the 

 south of the Caspian is indicated, probably on Lerche's authority. 



4 Diet. d'Agric., v. p. 512. 



5 Munby, Catal. Plant, in Alger. sponte nascent., edit. 2, p. 12. 



9 Schweinfurth and Ascherson, Aufzahlung, p. 256 ; Rohlfs, Kufra. 



