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212 MUSK-WOOD. — JACK-FKUIT. II, 16-17
16.
MUSK-W^OOD (0 # tK).
Sho-hiang-mu comes from Chan-ch'ong and Clion-la. It is a tree which
from age falls down and sinks into the ground, where it decays; this is the
best variety. As its fragrance has a slight resemblance to that of musk, the 5
wood is called «musk-wood». When fresh cut, it is of a strong and unpleasant
odour; this is the inferior quality. The people of Ts'uan-chou use this wood
a good deal for making furniture resembling that made of rose-wood (:^
Note. 10
We have been unable to identify this product, nor have we found any mention of it in other
Chinese works. The Tung-si-yang-k'au, 3,io'' mentions this product as coming from Kamboja, but
has nothing to say concerning it, except that the I-t'ung-chi says it has the odour of musk. The
Pon-ts'au does not refer to it.
17. 15
JACK-FRUIT ('^ B ^).
The po-lo-mi is of the size of a pumpkin; its outer skin is covered with
nodules like the hair on a Buddha's head. Its colour is green while growing,
and turns yellow when ripe. The pulp, when cut out of the fruit, is of
extreme sweetness. The tree resembles a banian, and the flowers grow in 20
clusters (|^). When the flowers fall and the fruit sets, only one develops, the
rest shrivel up. The po-lo-mi comes from Su-ki-tau; it is also found at the
Nam-hoi Temple (^ y$ j^)
in Canton.
Note.
This fruit is the product of the Artocarpus integrifolia; the origin of our name for it, jack, 25
is the Malayalam name of the fruit, chaMa. Its Sanskrit names are panasa, phalasa, and lantakaphala.
Yule and Burnell, Glossary, 335. Crawfurd, Hist. Indian Archipel., I, 422. De'can-
dolle, op. cit., 239, thinks it is indigenous to the Western Ghats-possibly Malabar. The fruit was at
first calleip'o-na-so by the Chinese, which is the Sanskrit name ^amasa. The Sui-shu 82,?'' is I be-
lieve, the earliest Chinese work to mention this fruit. Among the products peculiar to Chon-la (Kam- 30
boja) it spe^s of «the p'o-na-so
( 1^ ^[J ^) tree which had no flowers, and whose leaves were like
the sM (^ Diospyros kaki) and whose fruit was like a pumpkin (tung-kua). «Later on it received
the name of po-lo-mi, which, the Chinese say, was given it on its introduction into Canton in the
sixth century by a native of «the country of Po-1ob ('^ ^), whence the name of the fruit.
Po-Io, according to T'ang-shu, 222B, was S. W. of Kamboja'(Chi-t'u), and Won-hien-tung-k'au, 35
331. Sect. P'o-li, identifies it with P'o-li, which is supposed to have been in the Malay Peninsula.
Conf. supra, pp. 83, 85, n. 4, 96.
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