ORIGIN OF THE CULTIVATED LEGUMES 263 



This probably accounts for the early cultivation of the lentil, 

 which is one of the oldest of the legumes. It was cultivated by 

 the later lake dwellers (bronze age) of Switzerland, was known 

 by both the Greeks and Romans, and is mentioned freely in the 

 Old Testament. Without a doubt Esau's famous mess of pottage 

 was a dish of lentils. ^ This plant does not seem to have entered 

 into Anglo-Saxon agriculture, and in many respects seems on 

 the road to abandonment. 



The bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) y commonly called the haricot or 

 kidney bean, was early credited to Asia. Candolle has shown, 

 however, that it has not been found in the lake dwellings and 

 that it was absent from the collection of leguminous seeds found 

 by Virchow in the excavations at Troy, which included not only 

 the common garden pea but the broad bean. He also calls atten- 

 tion to the absence of any name for the bean in either Hebrew, 

 Sanskrit, or Chinese, and adds that there are no evidences of its 

 use in ancient Egypt.^ 



It has never been found wild in any country, and its c >gin 

 seemed a mystery until somewhat recently, when several varieties 

 of the true haricot bean were found in some Peruvian tombs 

 near Lima. These tombs may not antedate the Spanish invasion, 

 but this find, together with the fact that some fifty related species 

 are American ^ and not one European, leads Candolle to conclude 



* Sec Genesis xxv. Also " Origin of Cultivated Plants," p. 322. 



- This must not be confused with the broad bean belonging to another 

 species, J'a/'a vulgaris or Vicia faba, which in turn is not to be confused with 

 the Lima bean {Phaseolus lunatus), also native to South America, where its 

 wild congeners abound in the Amazon basin and central Brazil, whence it was 

 probably introduced by the slave trade into Africa where it now abounds. The 

 true broad bean exists alone in the genus luiba, and is not mentioned by Gray 

 in his manual of American plants, wild or cultivated. It is the common bean 

 of Europe, a small-seeded variety of which was grown by the lake dwellers in 

 their bronze age and by the ancient P^gyptians, though no specimens are found, 

 a fact thought to be due to their being considered unclean by the priests. 

 Candolle considers this plant to have had a double center of development, one 

 about the Caspian Sea, the other in northern Africa, such double domestication 

 being frequent. See " Origin of Cultivated Plants," pp. 316-321. 



* Several of these near relatives grow wild in North America, a number 

 of them being native to Illinois ; for example, Phaseolus perennisy Phaseolus 



