Bengal gram

Cicer arietinum, the chickpea, is an erect or spreading annual legume usually 20 to 60 cm tall, with finely glandular-hairy, much-branched stems. The leaves are pinnately compound, composed of nine to fifteen small ovate leaflets with toothed margins, and the whole plant is covered in glandular hairs that secrete acidic exudate. Solitary flowers, white, pink, or pale blue-violet, arise on slender stalks from the leaf axils. The short, inflated pod is oblong and contains one or two characteristically beaked seeds, ranging in colour from cream (kabuli type) to dark brown (desi type) and in shape resembling a ram's head. One of the oldest cultivated pulses, domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, it is now grown throughout warm-temperate and semi-arid regions worldwide as a staple protein crop.