Most of the kinds commonly eaten fresh or dried, those of the genus "Phaseolus", come originally from the Americas, being first seen by a European when Christopher Columbus, while exploring what may have been the Bahamas, found them growing in fields. Five kinds of "Phaseolus" beans were domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples: common beans ("P. vulgaris") grown from Chile to the northern part of what is now the United States, and lima and sieva beans ("P. lunatus"), as well as the less widely distributed teparies ("P. acutifolius"), scarlet runner beans ("P. coccineus") and polyanthus beans ("P. polyanthus") One especially famous use of beans by pre-Columbian people as far north as the Atlantic seaboard is the "Three Sisters" method of companion plant cultivation: