PHASEOLUS DIVERSIFOLIUS. 



DIVERSE-LEAVED KIDNEY-BEAN. 



NATURAL ORDER, FABACE/E. (LEGUMIXOS.E. rAPILIONACE.E.) 



Phaseolus DIVERSIFOLIUS, Persoon. — Stems prostrate, diffuse, scabrous, with recurved hairs; 

 leaflets angular, two to threc-lobed or entire; peduncle longer than the leaf, few-flowered; 

 lower tooth of the calyx longer than the tube ; legume pubescent, broadly-linear, cylindric; 

 leaflets one to two inches long, three quarters as wide, with scattered hairs beneath, often 

 variously and very obtusely lobed ; peduncles two to eight-flowered, three to six inches 

 long ; corolla purplish ; legume becomes black when ripe, five to seven seeded. (Wood's 

 Class-Book of Botmiy. See also Gray's Miiniml of the Botany of the Northern United 

 States, and Chairman's Flora of the Southern United States.) 



HE order to which the Kidney-Bean family belongs is 

 called Fabacecu by some botanists, from the genus Faba, 

 while others call it Legiuninoso', from the legumes borne by the 

 plants classed in it, and others Papilionncccc, from the butterfly- 

 shaped flowers. The history of the family reaches far back into 

 antiquity. The Common Kidney-Bean was cultivated in prehis- 

 toric times, and it is frequently mentioned by Greek and Latin 

 authors. Julius Caesar says that it was grown by the " Turci- 

 cos," who had evidently received it from their Scythian ances- 

 tors ; Columella, an author on husbandry, of the time of Claudius 

 Coesar, notes it as Pkascohis amono^ the cultivated Ici^umes of 

 his age, and Pliny also writes of it under this name ; while 

 Dioscorides, a Greek physician of the first century of our era 

 refers to it as Pliasiolon. Phascohcs signifies a little boat, and 

 it is claimed that these plants were so called from the shape of 

 their pods. But the beans themselves may just as well have 

 given rise to the name, as many of them resemble a boat quite 

 as much as a kidney. It is not always an easy matter to trace 



