Phaseolus lunatus L.

• Title

  Phaseolus lunatus L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Phaseolus lunatus L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Phaseolus lunatus Habas Lima Bean Family fabaceae Pea Family Phaseolus lunatus Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 724. 1753. Phaseolus portoricensis Bertero; Sprengel, Systema Vegetabilium 3: 253. 1826. Lima Beans, also called Broad Beans, are among the most important of all food-seeds; the name Lima came from their use in Peru, made known by the Spanish explorers. The several cultivated races have been derived from a wild species which is widely distributed nearly throughout tropical America, and has much smaller pods and seeds than the cultivated kinds produce. In Porto Rico the wild plant, regarded as indigenous, grows in thickets at lower and middle elevations, mostly in moist districts; occasionally we find plants spontaneous from seeds of cultivated forms. Phaseolus (ancient name of the Kidney Bean) is a Linnaean genus, including many species, estimated at about 170, natives of tropical and temperate regions of the Old World and the New. They are twining vines, or some kinds upright herbs, with 3-foliolate, stalked leaves, and clustered, axillary flowers, the axis of the clusters thickened at bases of the flower-stalks. The calyx is 4-toothed, or 5-lobed; the standard petal is orbicular, the wing-petals mostly obovate, the keel spirally coiled. There are 9 stamens united by their filaments, and 1 separate; the ovary contains many ovules, the style is longitudinally bearded, the stigma oblique, or lateral. The pod is various, more or less flattened, narrow, or broad, 2-valved. Phaseolus lunatus (lunate pod) is usually annual in duration, sparingly hairy, about 3 meters long, or much shorter. The ovate, ovate-lanceolate, or rhombic, thin leaflets are from 4 to 7 centimeters long, the middle one long-stalked, the 2 others inequilateral. The flowers are several, or many, in stalked clusters, the individual ones on slender stalks about 10 millimeters long, or shorter; the calyx is about 3 millimeters long, 4-toothed; the petals are greenish-white, the standard one about 7 millimeters broad. The pod of the wild plant is lunate, flat, from 3 to 7 centimeters long, from 10 to 15 millimeters wide, that of cultivated races much larger. The oblong, or nearly quadrate seeds are flattened. Another indigenous species of Phaseolus is illustrated in this work.