Great explanation Pankaj ji. It shows you have done a good background work!
Regarding the English name, i think, black lentil is to denote the seeds with skin; and the skin out is white lentil. could it be? With regards R. Vijayasankar On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Dr. Pankaj Kumar <[email protected]>wrote: > Dear Dinesh Sir, > > Mungo word came into use much before Linnaeus. It was Paul Hermann > (1646-1695) who initiated it. So most probably Mungo Park (1771 – > 1806) is not the correct person on which the name is based or most > probably the name is not based on his nae at all. Paul Hermann worked > in Sri Lanka and many of his herbarium specimens were used by Linnaeus > in his Species Plantarum (1753) as well as Mantissa plantarum (1761). > The hindi word MOONG came first and later came the botanical name. > > Secondly, Phaseolus radiata (now known as Vigna radiata) was named > earlier (1753) where as Phaseolus mungo (now known as Vigna mungo) was > named later in 1767 just because it looked like Mung though it was > not... > > Even at some point in botanical history both were believed to be > same....Paseolus mungo var. mungo and P. mungo var. radiatus. Hope > this solves your confusion. > > ......its fun sometimes..... > To add to your confusion, you know Urad is often called black lentil, > but it is also called as white lentil, though it is black :)))) isnt > that funny.... > Pankaj > > > >
