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0089 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 89 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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THE WALNUT

263

/wit tan, li-a, etc., to be brought to the capital C`afi-tan, and to be planted in the Fu-li Palace R.% g, founded in commemoration of the conquest of Nan-yüe, whereupon many gardeners lost their lives when the crops of the li-ci proved a failure.' Several of his palaces were named for the fruits cultivated around them: thus there were a Grape-Palace and a Pear-Palace. Hence the thought that in this exposition of foreign fruits the walnut should not be wanting, easily impressed itself on the mind of a subsequent writer. Wu Kan may also have had knowledge of the Can-K`ien tradition of the Po wu ci, and thus believed himself consistent in ascribing walnuts to the Han palaces. Despite his anachronism, it is interesting to note Wu Kün's opinion that the walnut came from Central Asia or Turkistan.

It is not probable that the walnut was generally known in China earlier than the fourth century A.D., under the Eastern Tsin

dynasty (265-419).2 In the Tsin kun ko min g P , a description of the palaces of the Tsin emperors, written during that dynasty,' it is stated that there were eighty-four walnut-trees in the Hwa-lin Park

1 The palace Fu-li was named for the li-ti X i (see San fu hwain t'u , Ch. 3, p. 9 b, ed. of Flan Wei ts'un Su).

2 BRETSCHNEIDER (Bot. Sin., pt. I, p. 39) asserts that Juglans regia figures among the plants mentioned passingly in the Nan fan ts'ao mu cwan by Ki Han a minister of state under the Emperor Hui TY.. of the Tsin dynasty (A.D. 290-306). He does not give any particulars. There are only two allusions to the walnut, that I am able to trace in this work: in the description of the coco-nut, the taste of this fruit is likened to that of the walnut; and the flavor of the "stone

chestnut " (. i-li   , Aleurites triloba) is compared with that of the same fruit.
We know at present that the book in question contains interpolations of later date (see L. AUROUSSEAU, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. XIV, 1914, p. 1o); but to these the incidental mention of the walnut does not necessarily belong, as Ki Han lived under the Tsin. It is likewise of interest that the walnut is not dealt with as a special item in the Ts'i min yao Su, a work on husbandry and economic botany, written by

Kia Se-niu   aig of the Hou Wei dynasty (A.D. 386-534); see the enumeration
of plants described in this book in BRETSCHNEIDER (op. cit., p. 78). In this case, the omission does not mean that the tree was unknown to the author, but it means only that it had then not attained any large economic importance. It had reached the palace-gardens, but not the people. In fact, Kia Se-niu, at least in one passage (Ch. Io, p. 48 b, ed. 1896), incidentally mentions the walnut in a quotation from the

Kiao cou ki   by Liu Hin-k'i f►J fit ;:° , where it is said, "The white yüan

tree j   [evidently = if,t is ten feet high, its fruits being sweeter and finer

than walnuts NI Vt." As the Kiao cou ki is a work relating to the products of Annam, it is curious, of course, that it should allude to the cultivated walnut, which

is almost absent in southern China and Annam; thus it is possible that this clause may be an interpolation, but possibly it is not. The fact that the same work likewise contains the tradition connecting the walnut with Cafi K'ien has been pointed out above. The tree pai yüan is mentioned again in the Pen ls'ao kain mu Si i (Ch. 8, p. 23), where elaborate rules for the medicinal employment of the fruit are given.

= BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. I, Q. 202, No. 945.