Its wild habitat was probably twofold some thousands of years ago, one of the centres being to the south of the Caspian, the other in the north of Africa. This kind of area, which I have called disjunctive, and to which I formerly paid a good deal of attention,[1603] is rare in dicotyledons, but there are examples in those very countries of which I have just spoken.[1604] It is probable that the area of the bean has long been in process of diminution and of extinction. The nature of the plant is in favour of this hypothesis, for its seed has no means of dispersing itself, and rodents or other animals can easily make prey of it. Its area in Western Asia was probably less limited at one time, and that in Africa in Pliny’s day was more or less extensive. The struggle for existence which was going against this plant, as against maize, would have gradually isolated it and caused it to disappear, if man had not saved it by cultivation. The plant which most nearly resembles the bean is _Vicia narbonensis_. Authors who do not admit the genus _Faba_, of which the characters are not very distinct from those of _Vicia_, place these two species in the same section. Now, _Vicia narbonensis_ is wild in the Mediterranean basin and in the East as far as the Caucasus, in the north of Persia, and in Mesopotamia.[1605] Its area is continuous, but this renders the hypothesis I mentioned above probable by analogy. +Lentil+—_Ervum lens_, Linnæus; _Lens esculenta_, Mœnch. The plants which most nearly resemble the lentil are classed by authors now in the genus _Ervum_, now in a distinct genus _Lens_, and sometimes in the genus _Cicer_; but the species of these ill-defined groups all belong to the Mediterranean basin or to Western Asia. This throws some light on the origin of the cultivated plant. Unfortunately, the lentil is no longer to be found in a wild state, at least with certainty. The floras of the south of Europe, of Northern Africa, of the East, and of India always mention it as cultivated, or as growing in fields after or with other cultivated species. A botanist[1606] saw it in the provinces to the south of the Caucasus, “cultivated and nearly wild here and there round villages.” Another[1607] indicates it vaguely in the south of Russia, but more recent floras fail to confirm this.