Green Gram, or Múng—Phaseolus mungo, Linnæus.
A species commonly cultivated in India and in the Nile Valley. The considerable number of varieties, and the existence of three different names in the modern languages of India, point to a cultivation of one or two thousand years, but there is no Sanskrit name.[1728] In Africa it is probably recent. Anglo-Indian botanists agree that it is wild in India.
Lablab, or Wall—Dolichos Lablab, Linnæus.
This species is much cultivated in India and tropical Africa. Roxburgh counts as many as seven varieties with Indian names. Piddington quotes in his Index a Sanskrit name, schimbi, which recurs in modern languages. Its culture dates perhaps from three thousand years. Yet the species was not anciently diffused in China, or in Western Asia and Egypt; at least, I can find no trace of it. The little extension of these edible Leguminosæ beyond India in ancient times is a singular fact. It is possible that their cultivation is not of ancient date.
The lablab is undoubtedly wild in India, and also, it is said, in Java.[1729] It has become naturalized from cultivation in the Seychelles.[1730] The indications of authors are not positive enough to say whether it is wild in Africa.[1731]
Lubia—Dolichos Lubia, Forskal.
This species, cultivated in Europe under the name of lubia, loubya, loubyé, according to Forskal and Delile,[1732] is little known to botanists. According to the latter author it exists also in Syria, Persia, and India; but I do not find this in any way confirmed in modern works on these two countries. Schweinfurth and Ascherson[1733] admit it as a distinct species, cultivated in the Nile Valley. Hitherto no one has found it wild. No Dolichos or Phaseolus is known in the monuments of ancient Egypt. We shall see from the evidence of the common names that these plants were probably introduced into Egyptian agriculture after the time of the Pharaohs.
The name lubia is used by the Berbers, unchanged, and by the Spaniards as alubia for the common haricot, Phaseolus vulgaris. Although Phaseolus and Dolichos are very similar, this is an example of the little value of common names as a proof of species. Loba is, as we have seen, one of the Hindustani names for Phaseolus vulgaris,[1734] and lobia that of Dolichos sinensis in the same language.[1735] Orientalists should tell us whether lubia is an old word in Semitic languages. I do not find a similar name in Hebrew, and it is possible that the Armenians or the Arabs took lubia from the Greek lobos (λοβος), which means any projection, like the lobe of the ear, a fruit of the nature of a pod, and more particularly, according to Galen, Ph. vulgaris. Lobion (Λοβιον) in Dioscorides is the fruit of Ph. vulgaris, at least in the opinion of commentators.[1736] It remains as loubion in modern Greek, with the same meaning.[1737]
Bambarra Ground Nut—Glycine subterranea, Linnæus, junr.; Voandzeia subterranea, Petit Thouars.
The earliest travellers in Madagascar remarked this leguminous annual, cultivated by the natives for the pod or seed, dressed like peas, French beans, etc. It resembles the earth, particularly in that the flower-stem curves downwards, and plunges the young fruit or pod into the earth. Its cultivation is common in the gardens of tropical Africa, and it is found, but less frequently, in those of Southern Asia.[1738] It seems that it is not much grown in America,[1739] except in Brazil, where it is called mandubi di Angola.[1740]