National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0081 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 81 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000248
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

THE WALNUT

255

best kinds being styled in Greek Persicum and basilicon,' and these being the actual names by which they first became known in Italy.' Pliny himself employs the name nuces iuglandes. Although Juglans regia is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, the Greeks seem to have received better varieties from anterior Asia, hence Greek names like Kapva 7reperucec or xcipva Qavworuccc.3

In fact, Juglans regia grows spontaneously in northern Persia and in Baluchistan; it has been found in the valleys of the Pskem and Ablatun at altitudes varying from i000 to iyoo m. Another species (Juglans pterocarpa, "Juglans with winged fruits") is met in the provinces of Ghilan and Mazanderan and in the vicinity of Astrabad.4 A. ENGLER5 states that the walnut occurs wild also in eastern Afghanistan at altitudes of from 2200 to 2800 m. Ibn Haukal extols the walnuts of Arrajan, Muqaddasi those of Kirman, and Istaxri those of the province of Jiruft.6

In Fergana, Russian Turkistan, the walnut is cultivated in gardens; but the nuts offered for sale are usually derived from wild-growing trees which form complete forests in the mountains.' According to A. STEIN,8 walnuts abound at Khotan. The same explorer found them at Yûl-arik and neighboring villages.'

I That is, " Persian nut " and "nut of the king," respectively, the king being the Basileus of Persia. These two designations are also given by Dioscorides (I, 178).

2 Et has e Perside regibus translatas indicio sunt Graeca nomina: optimum quippe genus earum Persicum atque basilicon vocant, et haec fuere prima nomina (Nat. hist., xv, 22, § 87).

3 J. HOOPS, Waldbäume and Kulturpflanzen, p. 553. The Romans transplanted the walnut into Gallia and Germania during the first centuries of our era. Numerous walnuts have been brought to light from the wells of the Saalburg, testifying to the favor in which they were held by the Romans. The cultivation of the tree is commended in Charles the Great's Capitulare de villis and Garden Inventories. Its planting in Gaul is shown by the late Latin term nux gallica, Old French nois gauge, which survives in our " walnut " (German walnuss, Danish valnöd, Old Norse valhnot, Anglo-Saxon wealh-hnutu); walh, wal, was the Germanic designation of the Celts (derived from the Celtic tribe Volcae), subsequently transferred to the Romanic peoples of France and Italy.

' C. JORET, Plantes dans l'antiquité, Vol. II, p. 44. Joret (p. 92) states that the Persians cultivated nut-trees and consumed the nuts, both fresh and dried. The walnut is twice mentioned in the Bündahign among the fruits serving as food, and among fruits the inside of which is fit to eat, but not the outside (WEST, Pahlavi Texts, Vol. I, pp. IOI, 103; cf. also p. 275).

b Erläuterungen zu den Nutzpflanzen der gemässigten Zonen, p. 22.

6 P. SCHWARZ, Iran im Mittelalter, pp. I14, 218, 241.

7 S. KORZINSKI, Sketches of the Flora of Turkistan, in Russian (Memoirs Imp. Russ. Ac., 8th ser., Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 39, 53).

8 Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, p. 131.

9 Ruins of Desert Cathay, Vol. I, p. 152.