The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Performance'. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Necessary'. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Functional'. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Analytics'. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. In areas where both are considered to be lima beans, the green variety may be labelled as baby (and less commonly junior) limas. In culinary use there, lima beans and butter beans are distinct, the former being small and green, the latter large and yellow. In the United Kingdom and the United States, butter beans refers to either dried beans which can be purchased to rehydrate, or the canned variety which are ready to use. In that area, lima beans and butter beans are seen as two distinct types of beans, although they are the same species. In the United States Sieva-type beans are traditionally called butter beans, also otherwise known as the Dixie or Henderson type. The term butter bean is widely used in North and South Carolina for a large, flat and yellow/white variety of lima bean (P. Despite the origin of the name, when referring to the bean, the word lima is generally pronounced differently from the Peruvian capital. During the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, lima beans were exported to the rest of the Americas and Europe, and since the boxes of such goods had their place of origin labeled Lima, Peru, the beans got named as such. The Moche Culture (1–800 CE) cultivated lima beans heavily and often depicted them in their art. The small-seeded (Sieva) type is found distributed from Mexico to Argentina, generally below 1,600 m (5,200 ft) above sea level, while the large-seeded wild form (lima type) is found distributed in the north of Peru, from 320 to 2,030 m (1,050 to 6,660 ft) above sea level. By around 1300, cultivation had spread north of the Rio Grande, and, in the 1500s, the plant began to be cultivated in the Old World.

The Andes domestication took place around 2000 BC and produced a large-seeded variety (lima type), while the second, taking place in Mesoamerica around 800 AD, produced a small-seeded variety (Sieva type). The Mesoamerican lima bean is distributed in neotropical lowlands, while the other is found in the western Andes. Two gene pools of cultivated lima beans point to independent domestication events. Phaseolus lunatus is found in Meso – and South America. A lima bean, also commonly known as the butter bean, sieva bean, double bean, Madagascar bean, chad bean, or wax bean is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans.

Sieva butter bean seed