Who described the chickpea in Species Plantarum in 1753?

Carl Linnaeus described the chickpea in the first edition of Species Plantarum in 1753.

Linnaeus classified the plant as Cicer arietinum, using the binomial system that became the foundation of modern biological naming. The genus name Cicer was the Latin term for chickpea, while arietinum refers to the seed’s resemblance to a ram’s head. Species Plantarum was especially important because it applied standardized two-part names broadly across plants.

Linnaeus was not the first scholar to write about chickpeas. Ancient Greek authors, including Theophrastus, discussed different kinds of chickpea, and Roman writers such as Columella and Pliny the Elder also recorded information about the crop. Earlier botanists had used related names too, including Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in the 17th century.

The 1753 Linnaean description therefore marks the formal botanical naming of the species, not the beginning of chickpea cultivation. Chickpeas had already been domesticated in the Near East thousands of years earlier and were important foods across Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian cuisines.