Phaseolus vulgaris - Substances & Homeopatic Remedies - For Homeopaths - Homeovision

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Description of the substance

Botanical description.

An erect or twining annual. Mature plant more or less pubescent. Leaves trifoliate; leaflets rhombic - ovate, accuminate; primary leaves entire, cordate deeply auriculate, dull green, slightly rough with fine scattered hispid pubescence, petioles distinctly pubescent. Flowers small white to yellowish or violet purple. Fruit a pod, flat or rounded or slender, 10 - 26 cm long, somewhat curved provided with a straight or curved tip, fleshy when young and light green, glabrous or slightly pubescent. Seeds more or less kidney shaped, elongated or nearly globular or somewhat compressed, white or fawn coloured, no conspicuous line radiating from the hilum.

Microscopical: In transection elliptical outline, with notch at one end. Epidermis single layered, cuticularised, made up of irregular cells, occasionally containing rectangular calcium oxalate crystals, few cells papillose. Epidermis is followed by 2 to 3 layers of tangentially elongated parenchymatous cells which more often become collenchyma at nodular end; and a zone of 8 to 12 layers of roundish parenchymatous cells which contain starch grains and oil droplets. Small vascular strands present at about regular intervals; a well developed vascular bundles present on notch end its opposite end, vascular bundles are shaped; 2 to 3 layers of sclerenchyma present capping the phloem, phloem scanty xylem well developed having protoxylem towards seeds.

Seed coat: Testa and tegmen fused. Transection shows thick cuticle followed by single layer of elongated macrosclereid and 2 to 3 layers of branchysclereids, followed by parenchyma zone of which outer 4 to 6 layers of cells oval, containing small vascular strands and inner 1 to 2 layers of elongated parenchymatous cells; below this a few layers of disintegrated cells present attached to cotyledon.

Cotyledon: Two; in transection plano - convex in outline; epidermis single layered enclosing parenchyma containing huge starch and oil droplets.


This common cultivated annual herb grows to various heights, according to its form and the method of cultivation. Stem twining and twisted, or short and erect in the bushy forms. Leaves pinnately trifoliate; leaflets large, ovate, pointed, entire. Inflorescence in solitary axillary racemes, the peduncle stout and shorter than the leaves. Calyx campanulate; teeth 5, unequal, the three lower ones larger, cuneate, acute, the two upper merely apparent. Corolla papilionaceous; keel circinate and somewhat spirally twisted; vexillum entire or nearly so, notched at the apex; alae pear - shaped, each furnished with a long claw and short incurved appendage. Stamens diadelphous; filaments circinate, dilated at the base. Ovary stipitate, hairy; style long, circinate, with a hairy margin; stigma pointed, hairy. Fruit a continuous, pendent, compressed, loculicidal, more or less falcate pod, polyspermous, and with cellular partitions between the seeds; seeds more or less reniform, cylindrical, or compressed; hilum small, oval - oblong, naked; cotyledons thick; radicle incurved.

Habitat.

The common Bean, so extensively cultivated as an esculent, was formerly supposed to have been introduced here from India, but Prof. Gray claims it a native plant, as the fruit and seed were found in the tombs of ancient Peruvians at Ancon, along with other purely native vegetables; it is, however, probable that the plant is not indigenous north of Mexico. The Bean has been cultivated by the natives from remote aboriginal times, many varieties having become valuable to them then (as they are to us now) as a potage, both while green, legume and all, and the seeds alone when ripe and dried. No previous medical use is discoverable.