It is more drought-resistant than the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions from Arizona through Mexico to Costa Rica.

Observation of "a limited number" of wild specimens suggested that "the flowers concur with the summer rains, first appearing in late August, with the pods ripening early in the fall dry season, most of them in October".

[7] The name for a small bean was recorded in the 17th century, in the now extinct Eudeve language of northern Mexico, as tépar (accusative case, tépari).

They were cultivated by various methods, most commonly after an infrequent rain in the desert or after flood waters along a river or ephemeral stream had subsided.

The Sand Papago (Hia C-eḍ O'odham) were mainly hunter-gatherers but cultivated tepary beans and other crops when moisture made it possible for them to do so.

In 1912, ethnographer Carl Lumholtz found small cultivated fields primarily of tepary beans in the Pinacate Peaks area of Sonora.

In the Pinacate, with an average annual precipitation of 75 mm (3.0 in) and temperatures up to 48 °C (118 °F), Papago and Mexican farmers utilized runoff from sparse rains to grow crops.

In the 1980s, author Gary Paul Nabhan visited this area, and found one farm family taking advantage of the first large rain in six years, planting seeds in the wet ground and harvesting a crop two months later.

The tepary bean uses these amino sugars as a protection mechanism against heat stress, preventing proteins within the body of the plant from starting a denaturation process.

A synteny analysis revealed that there is an intrachromosomal rearrangement on chromosomes 2 and 9; this could be a factor in the difficulties in developing fertile hybrids[14] Research in the United States and Mexico suggests that lectin toxins and other compounds from tepary beans may be useful in chemotherapy for treating cancer.