It has been my endeavor to correlate the Chinese data first of all with what we know from Iranian sources, and further with classical, Semitic, and Indian traditions. Unfortunately we have only fragments of Iranian literature. Chapter xxvii of the Bûndahisnl contains a disquisition on plants, which is characteristic of the treatment of this subject in ancient Persia. As it is not only interesting from this point of view, but also contains a great deal of material to which reference will be made in the investigations to follow, an extract taken from E. W. WEST'S translation2 may be welcome.
"These are as many genera of plants as exist: trees and shrubs, fruit-trees, corn, flowers, aromatic herbs, salads, spices, grass, wild plants, medicinal plants, gum plants, and all producing oil, dyes, and clothing. I will mention them also a second time: all whose fruit is not welcome as food of men, and are perennial, as the cypress, the plane, the white poplar, the box, and others of this genus, they call trees and shrubs (dar va diraxt) . The produce of everything welcome as food of men, that is perennial, as the date, the myrtle, the lote-plum (kûnar, a thorny tree, allied to the jujube, which bears a small plumlike fruit), the grape, the quince, the apple, the citron, the pomegranate, the peach, the fig, the walnut, the almond, and others in this genus, they call fruit (mivak) . Whatever requires labor with the spade, and is perennial, they call a shrub (diraxt) . Whatever requires that they take its crop through labor, and its root withers away, such as wheat, barley, grain, various kinds of pulse, vetches, and others of this genus, they call corn (jûrdak). Every plant with fragrant leaves, which is cultivated by the hand-labor of men, and is perennial, they call an aromatic herb (si param) . Whatever sweet-scented blossom arises at various seasons through the hand-labor of men, or has a perennial root and blossoms in its season with new shoots and sweet-scented blossoms, as the rose, the narcissus, the jasmine, the dog-rose (néstarûn), the tulip, the colocynth (kavastik), the pandanus (kédi), the camba, the ox-eye (h&j), the crocus, the swallow-wort (zarda), the violet, the karda, and others of this genus, they call a flower (01). Everything whose sweet-scented fruit, or sweet-scented blossom, arises in its season, without the hand-labor of men, they call a wild plant (vahar or nihal). Whatever is welcome as food of cattle and beasts of burden they call grass (giyah) . Whatever enters into cakes (pés-parakiha) they call spices (avzariha) . Whatever is welcome in eating of bread, as torn shoots of the coriander, water-cress (kakif), the leek, and
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