by Fred Muehlbauer • photography by Walter Kaiser

On a trip that in itself was a rare adventure into the Republic of Georgia, plant collector and former USDA scientist Walter J. Kaiser and I tracked down a rare species of wild chickpea (garbanzo). Our expedition last June to the former Soviet state took us to the heart of the Caucasus mountain region to explore and collect the wild legume plants that are close relatives of the pea, lentil, and chickpea crops grown in Washington. It was a rare treat to go searching there, since for so many years Georgia has been under Soviet rule and closed to western scientists like Walt and me. Scouring the landscape with the help of Georgian botanist Maia Akhalkatsi of the Georgian Academy of Sciences in the capital city of Tbilisi, we easily found a wild pea species and a wild lentil species and made note of the beautiful wildflowers growing around us. But our most exciting and difficult find was the wild garbanzo, which we nearly missed in the rugged terrain.

Walter Kaiser examines the much-hunted chickpea, which he found rooted on a rocky hillside among grasses and Sumac. Photo by Fred Muehlbauer

We had a general location of the plant, left to us by botanists who explored the area years ago, but not a specific site. So we parked and hiked into the mountains. Our hunt had us scrambling up steep hillsides and sometimes actually scaling the mountainsides. After hours of searching, we considered giving up. We were even in the car driving away, when Walt said, “We should go back.” I agreed. We convinced Maia and our driver to turn around.

About an hour into our continued search, Walt called out that he had found it, a huge stand of this wild chickpea. It was on a slope covered with rocks about the size of my fist. It was so steep and rocky, we had to lie on our sides to keep from sliding down. But that was good news, because the plant was apparently thriving in a niche where competing plants could not survive. As I crawled closer, I could tell the wild chickpeas were healthy, in full flower. They had many pods with viable seeds that we readily and happily collected. We celebrated that night with a bottle of good Georgian wine.