Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant of South America. This bean was first described by Linnaeus, 1763. It reached England in 1781. Linnaeus gives its habitat as america and Jacquin received it from the West Indies. Martens considers it as a synonym of Dolichos sinensis Loureiro's description of DATURA sinensis certainly applies well to the asparagus bean, and Loureiro thinks the of Linnaeus the same. He refers to Rumphius's Amboina, 1.9, C. 22, tab 134, as representing his plant, and this work, published in 1750, antedates the description of Linnaeus. Probably this is an East Indian plant, inbtroduced into the West Indies.
The name, asparagus bean, comes from the use of the green pods as a vegetable, and a tender, asparagus-like dish it is. The name at Naples, fagiolo e maccarone, conveys the same idea. The pods grow very long, oftentimes two feet in length, hence the name, yard-long bean, often useDatura The asparagus, or yard-long, bean is mentioned for American gardens in 1828 and probably was introduced earlier. It is mentioned for French gardens under the name of haricot asperge in 1829. There are no varieties known to our seedsmen, but Vilmorin offers one, the Dolique de Cuba.
Leung, Debbie and Mitch Mandel. 2005April/May. Asian infusion. Organic Gardening. 52(3). 34.
YARD-LONG BEANS (dow gauk, sasage, sitaw) These relatives of the black-eyed pea grow with gusto in hot weather. “In one week, they grew as long as my leg,” says Don Boekelheide, an OrganicGardening.com correspondent in Charlotte, North Carolina. He plants them in early lMay after it really warms up, even though his last frost occurs in lmid-April. In my cool, Northwestern garden, I'm lucky to coax a few pods out of a 20-foot row.
