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ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS
can be and often
 is
 an impoverishment of life, a progressive lossof the qualities that we identify with humanness and a progressiveweakening of mental and physical sanity."
16
For all of these reasons I find myself in complete disagreementwith Jackson when he says, in justification of pragmatic, eco-nomically oriented man, that with respect to the environment, "whatthe spectator wants or does not want [in the way or aesthetics]
 is
 ofsmall account,"
17
 for, unlike Jackson, I believe that the most neces-sary ingredient for the creation of a desirable future environmentis a vision of what we think that environment ought to be.
16
 R. Dubos, "C. F. Letter," (Conservation Foundation, Washington, D.C.,Feb. 24,1969), p. 11.
17
 J. B. Jackson, "Notes and Comments,"
 Landscape,
 Vol. 13, No. 2 (1963-64), p. 2.
The Grass Pea: Distribution,Diet, and Disease
ROBERT D. MITCHELL
9
ONE
 OF
 THE MORE INTRIGUING
 aspects of man's domestication and useof plants is the assimilation of certain toxin-producing plants intohis agricultural and dietary patterns. Most naturally toxic or unpal-atable plants which have become widely accepted food species, suchas cassava and certain species of yams and mustards, have been somodified by man that any unpleasant elements have been removedor rendered inoperative prior to consumption. Others have beenonly slightly modified or are essentially unchanged. The purposeof this paper is to examine the role played by a relatively little knowntoxic plant, grass pea or chickling vetch
 (Lathijrus sativus), in
 theagricultural and food patterns of the Old World. An annual legu-minous plant similar in appearance to the common field pea, andprobably native to southwest Asia, grass pea
 is
 a minor plant inman's culinary arsenal. It has been widely used as a fodder crop. InIndia and West Pakistan it attains the status of a minor food cropunder the commercial name of khesari. Both of these countries aiealso subject to an endemic paralytic disease known as lathyrism,which
 has
 long been attributed to the grass pea.
ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION
Members of the genus
 Lathyrus
 occur on all continents exceptAustralasia and Antarctica. The Mediterranean zone of Europe,
* Dr. Mitchell was an Assistant Professor of Geography at San FernandoValley State College when a paper on which this article is based was read atthe 32nd annual meeting of the Association. He is now on the faculty of theDepartment of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland20742. The author wishes to thank Frederick J. Simoons for originally intro-ducing him to the mysteries of grass pea, and Wallace St. Clair for drawing thefinal illustrations.
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3
ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS YEARBOOKVOLUME 331971
31
north Africa, and southwest Asia has the greatest profession of in-dividual species, seventy-six. This zone holds the key to the originsand subsequent diffusion of many species of the genus.
1
Lathyrus sativus
 is an Old World species which has also beenused as an experimental forage crop in the New World. Despitenumerous listings of the areas where this species is found, onlyMuratova has attempted to map its distribution.
2
 My research in-dicates a wider distribution for the plant than she was aware of,particularly in southern Asia and Africa (Figure 1). As a cultivatedcrop and as a naturalized weed, grass pea occurs from the Azores andCanary Islands eastward to the lower central Brahmaputra Valley inAssam. It has been identified as a forage plant or as a weed as farnorth as the outskirts of Paris and southern Germany.
3
 In the SovietUnion it seems to be confined to the Ukraine, the Caucasus, andTurkestan. In Africa it grows along the north coast, in the Nile Valley,and in limited areas in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Africa. Theadaptability of the species to a wide variety of physical conditions isevident in its vertical distribution. In the delta plains of East Pakistanit is cultivated at a few feet above sea level, and it has been observedabove 9,000 feet in southeastern Kashmir.
4
1
 Harold A. Senn, "Experimental Data for a Revision of the Genus Lathy-
rus,"
 American Journal of Botany,
 Vol. 25 (1938), pp. 68-69. For a detaileddiscussion of the botanical characteristics of grass pea, see Gabrielle H. C.Howard and K.S.A.R. Khan, 'The Indian Types of Lathyrus Sativus L.,"
Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in India,
 Botanical Series, VoL 15,
No.
 2 (1928), pp. 47-77.
2
 V. S. Muratova, "Areas of the geographical distribution of the most im-portant representatives of the genus
 Lathyrus L.
 which are of agriculturalvalue" (In Russian with English summary),
 Bulletin of Applied Botany, Ge-netics and Plant-Breeding,
 Vol. 16 ( 1926), p. 95.
3
 More than one hundred separate sources were consulted in reconstructingthe plant's distribution. For the limits mentioned, see W. Trelease,
 BotanicalObservations on the Azores,
 St. Louis, 1897, p. 109; H. Knoche,
 Die KanarischeInseln
 (Strassburg, 1923), pp. 175 and 226; U. N. Kanjila , P. C. Kanjilal,and A. Das,
 Flora of Assam,
 Vol. 2, Calcutta, 1938, p. 24; E. Cosson and G.de Saint-Pierre,
 Flore des Environs de Paris,
 Paris, 1861, p. 182; and GustavHegi,
 illustrierte Flora von Mittel-Europa,
 Vol. 4 (Munich, 1924), pp. 1604-
1606.
*
 Abdul Alim, "Fodder Plant Resources of East Pakistan,"
 AgriculturePakistan,
 Vol. 10 (1959), pp. 351-357, and R. R. Stewart, 'The Flora of Ladak,Western Tibet,"
 Contributions from the Department of Botany, Columbia Uni-verstíy,
 No. 281,1916-17, p. 637.
INDIAN OCEANATLANTICOCEAN
1500
I
MILES
Figure 1. Maximum distribution of the grass pea as a food and fodder crop.(Adapted from V. S. Muratova)
There is sufficient archaeological evidence to suggest that thegrass pea is a relatively old cultivated plant closely associated withthe origins and diffusion of Old World agriculture. The earliest refer-ence is for the western foothills of the Zagros Mountains of westernIran. At the Deh Luran excavation site, grass peas were found inassociation with wheat, barley, lentils, and flax in a level which datedbetween 4,000 and
 5,200
 B.C.
5
 The plant was found in the pyramid
8
 Frank Hole, K. Flannery, and J. Neely, "Early Agriculture and AnimalHusbandry in Deh Luran, Iran,"
 Current Anthropology,
 Vol. 6 (1965), pp. 105-
106.
 
32
ASSOCIATION
 OF
 PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS YEARBOOK
 
 VOLUME
 33
1971
33
complexes
 of the
 lower Nile Valley, dated between 2,300
 and
2,700
 B.
 C,
 and
 at
 the
 excavations
 at
 Navdatoli
 on the
 northwesternDeccan
 in
 India, where
 it
 was eaten
 or
 cultivated between 1,500
 and
2,000
 B.
 C.
6
 There appears
 to
 be no
 Hebrew name
 for
 the
 plant,
 but
it does occur
 in
 ancient Sanskrit under
 the
 name
 triputa
 meaning"threefold"
 or
 "angular," possibly referring
 to the
 flowers
 or the
seeds.
7
 A
 small-seeded variety was found
 at
 Aggtelek,
 a
 late Neolithicsite
 in
 Hungary,
 and the
 plant was used
 as
 a
 fodder crop
 in
 ancientGreece and Rome.
8
Opinions vary widely
 on
 the
 possible hearth area. Linnaeus
 be-
lieved
 it to be
 native
 to
 southern Europe,
 de
 Candolle vaguely sug-gested
 the
 region from
 the
 Caucasus
 to the
 north
 of
 India,
 and
Vavilov originally included
 it in his
 Afghanistan-northwest Indiaand Ethiopia centers. However,
 the
 most recent archaeological
 evi-
dence points
 to
 southwest Asia
 and
 particularly
 to the
 western foot-hill steppe zone
 of the
 Zagros Mountains
 as the
 probable originof
 the
 plant
 as a
 crop collected
 and
 eventually cultivated
 by
 man
(Figure
 2).
e
 This region which today receives
 an
 average annualprecipitation
 of
 10
 to
 15 inches with
 a
 distinct winter maximum
 was
probably much wetter during
 the
 early Neolithic period some 10,000to
 11,000
 years ago.
10
The early association
 of
 Lathyrus sativus
 with
 the
 wild ancestorsof wheat
 and
 barley would seem
 to be an
 additional clue
 to the
domestication
 of
 the
 plant.
 One
 of
 the
 most striking features aboutthe development
 of
 Old
 World seed agriculture
 is
 the
 close relation-ship between grain crops
 and
 legumes. Many
 of the
 latter seem
G
 Oakes Ames,
 Economic Annuals
 and
 Human Cultures,
 Cambridge, Mass.,1939,
 pp.
 51-52,
 and
 Robert
 J.
 Braidwood
 and G. R.
 Willey (eds.),
 Course s
Toward Urban Life
 (Chicago, 1962),
 p.
 75.
7
 Suáruta,
 Sushruta Samhita,
 Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies,
 Vol.
 30 (Var-
anasi, India, 1963), p.
 474.
8
 F.
 Pax,
 Grundzüge
 der
 Pflanzenverbreitung
 in den
 Karpathen,
 Leipzig,1898,
 240, and H. O.
 Lenz,
 Botanik
 der
 Alten Griechen
 und
 Römer
 (Gotha1859),
 pp.
 729-730.
9
 Hole, Flannery,
 and
 Neely,
 op.
 cit.,
 pp. 105-106.
 See
 also Robert
 J.
 Braid-wood, "Near Eastern Prehistory,"
 Science,
 Vol.
 127
 (1958),
 p. 1426.
10
 Karl
 W.
 Butzer,
 Environment
 and
 Archaeology,
 Chicago,
 1964, pp.
425-426,
 and H. E.
 Wright, "Natural Environment
 of
 Early Food ProductionNorth
 of
 Mesopotamia,"
 Science,
 Vol.
 161
 (1968), pp. 334-339.
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1
 
MILES
Figure 2. Origins and diffusion
 of
 the
 grass pea.
to have been brought into cultivation
 as
 secondary domesticants,i.e., they were originally found as weeds in cultivated wheat or barleyfields. On
 the
 other hand,
 in
 some areas
 of
 southwest Asia
 it
 is
 pos-sible that legumes were primary domesticants, having been selectedand brought into cultivation as forage plants by groups
 in
 the processof domesticating herd animals.Assuming that
 the
 origin
 of
 the
 plant
 as a
 cultivated crop
 was
in
 the
 Zagros foothills,
 it
 would have been easier
 for it to
 spreadwest
 to the
 Mediterranean zone with
 its
 winter rains than
 to
 move

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