PULSES, species of the Fab:icon or bean tribe of plants, arc largely used in the E. Indies ax food for man and beast. They are eaten with, and supply to rice and some other cereal., the nitro genous or flesh-forming material in which these are defective. Bengal grain or Cicer arictinum, or chick-pea, occupies an important pootition, It is largely used by the people, awl constitutes, besidea, the chief horse food of Northern and 1Vestern India. It can be need for this purpose for a length of time without causing heating, or the other deleterious effects ordinarily produced by the too exclusive employment of peas awl beans. Other pulses, known as dhal or dhol. are also very largely eaten in Northern India, along with rice. All the pulses occupy an important position in the food of the people of the interior phtins. The generic name in Malay and Javanese for all leguminous plants is Kachang, by adding an epithet to which we have the natne of the species.
The food species of the Fabacere moat used and cultivated in the S. end E. of Asia are as under :— Arachis hypogea, L., earth-nut.
Cajanus Indicus, Sprenger, 2 varieties.
Canavalia gladiata, D.C., 3 varieties.
Ceratonia siliqua, L.
Cicer arietinum, Lin n., chickpea.
Cyamopsis psomloides, D.C., beans.
Dolichos uniflorus, Lam., horse gram, 2 varieties. D. Sinensis, Linn., 4 varieties.
Ervum lens, Linn., lentil, tare.
Faba vulgaris.
Lablab cultratum, D.C., 6 varieties.
L. vulgare, Sari., 7 varieties.
Lathyrus aphaca, Linn., yellow vetchling.
L. sativus, Linn., blue-flowered chickling.
Pachyrrhizus angulatus, Rich., the root only.
Phaseolus aureus, Lozb.
P. lunatus, L., country French beans, 6 var.
P. mungo, L., green grain.
P. nanus, L., common dwarf kidney bean.
P. radiatus, L., green gram.
P. Itoxburghii, W. and A., 2 varieties.
P. trilobus, Ait.
P. vulgaris, Linn., French bean, haricot, common kidney bean.
Pisum sativum, Linn., common pes, 3 varieties. P. arvense.
Psophocarpue tetragonolobus, D.C., Goa bean, chevaux de frise bean.
Soja hispida. Manch., soy.
Vicia faba, Linn., garden bean.
V. sativa, Linn., common vetch.
Wistaria Sinensis.
Several species are regular objects of cultivation, as Phaseolus lunatus and Roxburghii Dolichcso kachang, Lablab vulgaris, Soja Iiispid;, Num Indicus, and Arachis hypogea.
The ordinary pulses belong to the tribes \idea) and Phaseolue of the order Fabacete. All the cultivated varieties of beans have originated from Paha vulgaris ; all the varieties of garden peas have originated from the Munn sativum, a native of the south of Europe, and the field pea is the Pisum arvense. The flour of lentils contains moro nitrogenous utatter than any other of the leguminous planta—Cat. 1862 ; Crarfeerds Diet. p. 361.