ABSTRACT
Vicia faba L. is a well known crop, particularly in Eurasia and North Africa. In each of the countries where it is grown, it has received many names according to its size and use (vegetable, food legume, feed legume). In English the traditional name, still seen in 19th century dictionaries, was just “bean”. The word bean was later applied to other crops whose seeds showed a similar shape, such as the American crop Phaseolus vulgaris L., which at present is the most widely known “bean” in the world. Vicia faba also gaves its name to other crops, especially to Phaseolus and Vigna species (for example, in Spanish: fabes, habichuelas, etc.). The name “fi eld” bean was widely used in English for a time, and has direct parallels in German “Ackerbohne” and Swedish “bondböna”, among others. Since the term “fi eld bean” was often applied to both V. faba and P. vulgaris, while “bean” is not suffi ciently informative, the name “faba bean” was derived by Canadian breeders and spread by ICARDA breeders and agronomists. It is largely used nowadays because of its simplicity and relationship with the scientifi c name.
