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), 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 origin 
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 
1 See Genesis xxv. Also “Origin of Cultivated Plants,” p. 322. 
2 This must not be confused with the broad bean belonging to another 
species, Faéa 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 /aéa, 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 Egyptians, 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. 
3 Several of these near relatives grow wild in North America, a number 
of them being native to Illinois; for example, Phaseolus perennis, Phaseolus 
