Grain Legume Species of Significant Importance in World Agriculture*

The enormous diversity of the Leguminosae is well known. The family comprises an estimated number of almost 20,000 species classified more-or-less reliably ⁵⁹ within perhaps as many as 750 genera (Table 1). In economic importance the family is second only to the Gramineae and in number it is exceeded only by the Orchidaceae and the Compositae. ^{3 , 20 , 39 , 58}