Japanese name: レンズマメ Scientific name:Lens culinaris
[Overview]
An annual 15–75 cm tall.
The growth habit and other traits vary with the cultivar.
Leaves are alternate and pinnately compound.
There are 4–7 pairs of leaflets, each narrowly elliptic, about 1 cm long, with entire margins.
The leaves have tendrils and stipules.
Racemes arise from the leaf axils and bear 1–4 white, pink or reddish purple pea-shaped flowers.
The fruit is a pod 1–2 cm long, usually containing 2 seeds.
The seeds are flat and round, 4–9 mm in diameter.
[History]
It is thought to have been domesticated around 7,000 BC in southwestern Turkey and Turkestan, and then spread to Europe and South Asia.
In India it has been cultivated since around 2,000–1,500 BC.
[Uses]
It is used in curries, soups, stews and the like.
[Notes]
The word for lenses, as in cameras, derives from the fact that the shape of the original convex lenses resembled Renzu-mame.
