B. P. I.—463. 
THE FLORIDA.VELVET BEAN AND ITS HISTORY. 
By KATHERINE STEPHENS Bort, Laboratory Aid, Forage Crop Investigations. 
HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA VELVET BEAN. 
The most important leguminous forage crop grown in Florida is 
undoubtedly the velvet bean. ¢ the past fifteen years it has rapidly 
grown in importance as its value has come to be more and more ap- 
preciated. In so far as one can rely on the memory of various resi- 
dents in Florida, the velvet bean was known there at least as early as 
1875, but no documentary evidence earlier than 1890 has been found. 
In connection with the study of the Florida velvet bean the interest- 
ing fact develops that the plant does not belong to any of the species 
to which it has been referred, but on the contrary is a distinct species 
not heretofore properly characterized or named. The detailed his- 
tory of the plant as far as the documentary or published evidence 
is concerned is given below. 
On September 8, 1890, Hon. J. M. Rusk, Secretary of Agriculture, 
writing to Mr. S. C. Carleton, Argo, Fla., in a letter preserved in 
the files of the United States National Herbarium, acknowledges 
the receipt of “a peculiar seed of a bean,” and continues the letter as 
follows: 
The plant is apparently a species of the genus Mucuna. The National Her- 
barium contains nothing exactly like it and it is probably of tropical origin. 
I shall be glad if you will send us some specimens of the vine, portions of 
the stem a foot or two long with some flowers, leaves, and fruit in position. 
We wish to prepare the specimens for permanent keeping in the herbarium. 
I mail you to-day a box in which the plant can be placed and sent free of 
postage. 
No further correspondence has been found, but in the United 
States National Herbarium are several specimens sent in by Mr. 
Carleton under date of September 22, 1890, on one of which is the 
information “introduced with coffee seed,” and on another “ intro- 
duced from tropical America of West Indies.” These specimens 
were mistakenly identified as Mucuna pruriens L. The plant is the 
Florida velvet bean, and the above is the first documentary record 
concerning it that has yet been found. 
7034—Bul. 141—09——4 25 
