359 
Leguminous Fruits . 
The Romans by no means called our leguminous fruits only 
legumina , but under this name they included all fruits which were 
cultivated in the fields, and were dressed and used for nourish- 
ment, but had not previously been used in the shape of meal 
and bread. Columella (De Re rustica, 1. ii. c. 7.) mentions un- 
der this name milium , panicum , cannabis , and sesama , to 
which he adds, linum and herdeum. In the same manner, 
among the French, the term legumes has a more extensive 
meaning. But the Greeks had two words, x^i 07rei and oWgM f, 
the latter of which corresponds to the word legumina among 
the Romans, and the former denotes exactly our leguminous 
plants, (Galen, De Alimentor. facultat. 1. i. c. 16.) 
Bean (Vicia faba). 
Beans (Vicia faba) may here, as among the ancients, be first 
considered. Columella names them before the rest, and Pliny 
says, Fabce maximus honos est (Hist. Nat. 1. xviii. c. 12.) We 
have two species, Faba equina , and Faba hortensis. The Faba 
forms a particular subgenus of the genus Vicia , and is distin- 
guished by its erect stem, which rises without tendrils, and by 
its internally spongy pod. In the first edition of the Spec. 
Plant. Linnaeus mentions the native country of the bean as un- 
certain ; but, in the second, he says, habitat in LEgypto, doubt- 
less by confounding it, along with the ancient writers, with Ne- 
lumbium speciosum. But in the Syst. Veget. it is said, habitat 
non procul a Mari Caspio in confiniis Per sice ; and Lerche is cit- 
ed as an authority, but whether from oral or written testimony 
is not evident, for Lerche, so far as I know, has not published 
any thing upon the subject. Gmelin, Pallas, Georgi, Hablizl, 
do not mention it, nor does Marschall von Bieberstein. But as 
the last mentioned author mentions Vicia narbonensis as growing 
wild in Tauris, and it is very like the Vicia faba , it is very pro- 
bable that the two have been confounded. 
The ancients were not acquainted with our mode of horticul- 
ture, but xvxpog among the Greeks, and faba among the Ro- 
mans, without doubt, denoted our field bean, ( Vicia faba) 
According to Theophrastus Kvupo$ is a leguminous plant, (rm 
%ifyo7rav, Hist. PI. 1. viii. c. 1.), it is the only one of the legumes 
that has an erect stem ; it has also round leaves, and puts forth 
