Your excellent image of a carbonized legume seed is, as you suspect, probably not Vigna angularis. You are correct in concluding that it is something other than adzuki on the basis of the rounded rather than angular ends. In addition to the overall form of the seed, what we can see of the embryo axis (the leafy part of the stem and the root) does not support angularis. V. angularis is a hypogeal germinator (the cotyledons remain below ground) and in the seed of hypogeal germinators the hypocotyl is quite short. The image doesn't show that part too well. But it doesn't look short enoiugh. Question: what is the length of the size bar? Or the length of the seed itself? Do you have a date for the seed?
________________________________
From: The archaeobotany mailing list on behalf of Minkoo Kim
Sent: Tue 4/29/2008 4:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Vigna angularis?
Dear all,
I am trying to identify a seed in the attached picture. It was
half-broken and found with some charred adzuki beans (Vigna angularis)
in a Korean archaeological site. The reason I am hesitant about
identifying this as adzuki bean is that the side view of this one is
oval rather than rectangular. Can this still be Vigna angularis?
Minkoo Kim
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