CHAPTER 1 

 HISTORY OF AMERICAN GARDEN BEANS 



The discovery of America very nearly marks the 

 beginning of the recorded history of the common, lima, 

 and runner beans. Of course, beans had been culti- 

 vated for untold years in America before 1492, but 

 records are not available or are very scant. Beans, 

 both lima and common, have been found in pre-Colum- 

 bian Andean tombs and many of the early discoverers 

 report a diversity of kinds that suggests a long period 

 of cultivation not only on the American continental 

 areas but also on the outlying islands. According to 

 Gray and Trumbull (Am. Jour. Sci. 26:130. 1883), 

 " Three weeks after his first landing in the new world 

 Columbus saw, near Nuevitas in Cuba, fields planted 

 with ' faxones and fabas very different from those of 

 Spain ' and two days afterward, following the north 

 coast of Cuba, he again found ' land well cultivated 

 with these fexoes and habas much unlike ours.' 

 ' Faxones ' or ' fexoes ' were — as Navarrete notes 

 (Co/ec. i, 200, 203) ' the same as frejoles or judias,' 

 Spanish names for kidney beans, . . ." Oriedo 

 (1525-35) speaks of there being "many kinds in the 

 Indies." Cabeca de Vaca (1528), De Soto (1539), and 

 Jacques Cartier (1534) all mention the beans cultivated 

 by the natives. 



The earlier belief in the Asiatic origin of the common 

 bean and its close allies has been so thoroughly dis- 

 proved that it is thought unnecessary to discuss the 

 question here. The underlying reasons for this belief 

 are noted in De Candolle's Origin of Cultivated 

 Plants and their refutation may be found in the works 

 of Gray and Trumbull and of Sturtevant as referred to 

 in succeeding paragraphs. 



The earliest reference seen to the cultivation of 

 beans in Europe is by Fuchs (Fuchsius) in his De 

 Historia Stirpium (1542) where he figures on p. 428 

 a bush bean and writes of them as " Welsch Bohnen " 

 foreign beans. Bock, or Tragus, as his name is latinized, 

 pictured the first pole beans in his De Stirpium (1552). 

 Following this apparently the spread of these beans 

 was fairly rapid as Dodoens (Dodonaeus) figures pole 

 beans again in his Frumentorum Leguminum (1566 1, 

 as did de l'Obel (Lobelius) in both the Plantarum seu 

 Stirpium Historia, p. 511. 1576; and in the Plant- 

 arum seu Stirpium /cones. 2:260. 1591. De l'Ecluse 

 'Clusiusi in 1601 also figured the pole bean and is 

 apparently the first to give an account of the lima bean. 

 He gives a very good description and an unmistakable 

 figure on page ccxxiii of his Rariorum Plantarum 

 Historia where he says that he had received the seed 

 from C. V. Purkinje of Posen " late in the year 1576." 

 He also notes having received seeds from Spain as 

 " Guatemalan beans." It is worth noting that he 

 described all forms as " Phaseoli peregrini " or " foreign 

 beans." In the 16 kinds mentioned various genera are 

 represented. 



What are considered as generic names now were 

 used very loosely at that time and indeed for some years 

 after the time of Clusius. The term legumes now 

 held for members of the bean family was used as broadly 

 as the term " grass " is used occasionally at present — 

 including not only true grasses but also sedges, alfalfa, 

 clover, and other forage plants. 



Bauhin in his Historia Plantarum (1616) described 

 a large number of beans, pole and bush, common and 

 lima, many of which were reported before 1592. Thus, 

 in the century following the discovery of America, bean 

 culture had begun to spread through Europe with a fair 

 degree of rapidity when account is taken of the poorly 

 developed methods of communication existing at the 

 time. However, Parkinson, in 1629, speaks of them as 

 a rich man's dish, and Worlidge, in 1683, says that 

 " within the memory of man they were a great rarity 

 though now a common, delicate food." As regards 

 the varieties grown Sturtevant notes that Martyn's 

 edition of Miller (1724) lists " varieties of bush beans 

 which can be identified with those grown at the present 

 time, five in all." For detailed notes on the statements 

 of early explorers the reader should consult Sturtevant's 

 Notes on Edible Plants, pp. 418^28, 1919, and Gray 

 and Trumbulls' review of De Candolle's Origin of 

 Cultivated Plants in Am. Jour. Sci. 26:130-138. 

 1883. Unfortunately, these notes are too numerous to 

 be included here. 



The year 1753 with the appearance of the Species 

 Plantarum of Linneaus marked the beginning of a 

 period of increased and intensive study of plant life 

 and a valiant effort to clarify the relationships of forms 

 and to organize the almost chaotic mass of knowledge 

 concerning vegetation which had been gradually accumu- 

 lating during the preceding years. The numerous 

 explorations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

 had brought into Europe a flood of new plants among 

 which were the ubiquitous and always useful beans. 

 Linnaeus in his work described the common bean as 

 Phaseolus vulgaris, the runner bean as P. coccineus, 

 and two forms of the lima as P. lunatus and P. 

 inamoenus. Here we have all the names that enter 

 into most present-day ideas of the major types of 

 American beans, excepting for the moment the Tepary 

 bean, which did not attract attention until the beginning 

 of the twentieth century. The common beans as a 

 group are known as Phaseolus vulgaris; the scarlet 

 runner and its various forms are held collectively as 

 Phaseolus coccineus; and the lima and its several 

 variant forms are united under Phaseolus lunatus. 



All of these beans vary to a considerable extent and 

 the numerous extremes of variation have been named 

 by various botanists and indeed the same form has 

 not infrequently received different names from different 

 botanists who were often unaware of the existence of 



