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0044 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 44 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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218   SING-IRANICA

and HEMSLEYI give as Chinese species Medicago denticulata, falcata,2 and lupulina (the black Medick or nonsuch), M. lupulina "apparently common, and from the most distant parts," and say with reference to Medicago sativa that it is cultivated in northern China, and also occurs in a wild state, though it is probably not indigenous. This "wild" Medicago sativa may be an escape from cultivation. It is an interesting point that those wild species are named ye mu-su ("wild alfalfa"), which goes to show that these were observed by the Chinese only after the introduction of the imported cultivated species.' Wu K`i-tsün4 has figured two ye mu-su, following his illustration of the mu-su,— one being Medicago lupulina, the other M. denticulata.

The Japanese call the plant uma-goya i ("horse-nourishing ") .5 MATSUMURA6 enumerates four species: M. sativa: murasaki (" purple") umagoya. i;7 M. denticulata: umagoya i; M. lupulina: kometsubuumagoya. i; and M. minima: ko-umagoya i.

In the Tibetan dialect of Ladâkh, alfalfa is known as ol. This word refers to the Medicago saliva indigenous to Kashmir or possibly introduced there from Iran. In Tibet proper the plant is unknown. In Armenia occur Medicago sativa, M. flcata, M. agrestis, and M. lupulina.8

Under the title " Notice sur la plante mou-sou ou luzerne chinoise par C. de Skattschkoff, suivie d'une autre notice sur la même plante traduite du chinois par G. PAUTHIER," a brief article of i6 pages appeared in Paris, 1864, as a reprint from the Revue de l'Orient.' Skattschkoff, who had spent seven years in Peking, subsequently became Russian consul in Dsungaria, and he communicates valuable information on the agriculture of Medicago in that region. He states that seeds of this

1 Journal Linnean Soc., Vol. XXIII, p. 154.

2 Attempts are being made to introduce and to cultivate this species in the United States (cf. OAKLEY and GARVER, Medicago Falcata, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bull. No. 428, 1917).

3 We shall renew this experience in the case of the grape-vine and the walnut.

4 Ci wu min Si ru k`ao, Ch. 3, pp. 58, 59.

6 In the same manner, Manchu morxo is formed from marin ("horse") and orxo ("grass").

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6 Shoku butsu-mei-i, Nos. 183-184.

7 The flower of this species is purple-colored.

8 A. B PGUINOT and P. N. DIRATZSUYAN, Contributo alla flora dell' Armenia,

P. 57-

9 The work of Pauthier is limited to a translation of the notice on the plant in the Ci wu min Si t'u k`ao. The name Yû-lou nun frequently occurring in this work does not refer to a treatise on agriculture, as conceived by Pauthier, but is the literary style of Wu K'i-tsûn, author of that work.