Sino-Iranica - The Search For Mecca

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Sino-Iranica
is one of the most useful trees of the countries where it grows. The
nuts are either smoked and dried for use, or the oil is expressed from
them in their recent state. The oil is used for all culinary purposes,
and is more palatable and finer than that of the coconut. The kernels,
mixed up with a little sago meal, are made into cakes and eaten as
bread. The kanari is a native of the same country with the sago tree,
and is not found to the westward. In Celebes and Java it has been
introduced in modern times through the medium of traffic."
1
The Yu yah tsa tsu speaks of a man hu t'ao M fi§ $& as "growing
in the kingdom of Nan-Cao ^j la in Yun-nan; it is as large as a flat
conch, and has two shells of equal size; its taste is like that of the
cultivated walnut. It is styled also 'creeper in the land of the Man'
(Man luh t'eh-tse S$ 't'llfF')-" It will be remembered that Twan
C'eh-§i, the author of this work, describes also the cultivated walnut
(p. 264).
The T'ai p'in yii Ian contains another text attributed to the Lin
piao lu i relating to a wild walnut, which, however,
edition of this work published in the collection Wu yih tien in 1775.
is not extant in the
This text is as follows: "The large walnut has a thick and firm shell.
It is larger than that of the areca-nut. 2
It has much meat, but little
glumelle. It does not resemble the nuts found in northern China. It
must be broken with an axe or hammer. The shell, when evenly
smoothed over the bottom, is occasionally made into a seal, for the
crooked structure of the shell {ko Rtf) resembles the seal characters." 8
In the Lin wai tai ta ^ ft ft ^, 4 written by Cou K'u-fei ffl £ $r
in 1 1 78, mention is made, among the plants
of southern China and
Tonking, of a "stone walnut (U hu Vao ^ $] $&), which is like stone,
has hardly any meat, and tastes like the walnut of the north." Again,
a wild species is involved here. I have not found the term H hu Vao in
any other author.
The various names employed by the T'ang
writers for the wild
1 Ch. 19, p. 9 b (ed. of Tsin tai pi Su); or Ch. 19, p. 9 a (ed. of Pai hai).
1 This sentence, as well as the first, agrees with the definition given by the Pei
hu lu with reference to a wild walnut (above, p. 268).
1 T'ai p'in yii Ian, Ch. 971, p. 8 b. The same text is cited by the Pen ts'ao kan
mu and the Ko li kin yuan (Ch. 76, p. 5 b), which offer the reading San hu t'ao [I]
§J ^ ("wild walnut") instead of "large walnut." The Kwan k'iinfan p'u (Ch. 58,
p. 26) also has arranged this text under the general heading "wild walnut." The
Pen ts'ao kan mu opens it with the sentence, "In the southern regions there is a wild
walnut." The restriction to South China follows also from the text as given in the
T'ai p'in yii Ian.
* Ch. 8, p. 10 b (ed. of Ci pu tsu lai ts'un Su).