Introduction 197 



as a drug. Even if an antidote is taken, this poison will cause death 

 within a half day. The goats feeding on the sprouts of this plant will 

 fatten and grow." Fan C'en-ta t& $c ^C (1126-93), i n his Kwei hai 

 yii hen Zi, x mentions this plant under the name hu-man t'en j§£ ("hu-man 

 creeper"), saying that it is a poisonous herb, which, rubbed and soaked 

 in water, will result in instantaneous death as soon as this liquid enters 

 the mouth. The plant is indigenous to southern China, and no reason 

 is given for the word hu being prefixed to it. 



12. Hu Vui-tse ~$ M ■? (literally, "chin of the Hu") is the name 

 of an evergreen tree or shrub indigenous throughout China, even to 

 Annam. The name is not explained, and there are no data in Chinese 

 records to indicate that it was introduced from abroad. 2 It is men- 

 tioned by C'en Ts'ah-k'i as a tree growing in P'in-lin *P $s and it is 

 said to be alluded to in the chapter Wu hin ci 3l fx i& of the Sun s"u. 

 The synonyme kHo'r-su ^ jS 8£ ("sparrow-curd," because the birds 

 are fond of the fruit) first appears in the Pao ci lun of Lei Hiao of the 

 fifth century. The people of Yue call the plant p'u-Vui-tse W M "& ; 

 the southerners, lu-tu-tse M. HE ■?, which according to Liu Tsi ^J ^ 

 of the Ming, in his Fei sue lu IS W- $k, is a word from the speech of 

 the Man. The people of Wu term the tree pan-han-c'un ^ff$, 

 because its fruit ripens at an early date. The people of Sian IS style 

 it hwah-p'o-nai JI9$flR ("yellow woman's breast"), because the 

 fruit resembles a nipple. 



13. In hu-lu 5§8 or HI iH. (Lagenaria vulgaris) the first character is 

 a substitute for 1$ hu. The gourd is a native of China. 



14. Hui-hui tou IhJ j£ (literally, "Mohammedan bean") is a 

 plant everywhere growing wild in the fields. 8 The same remark holds 

 good for hu tou W[ i£, a kind of bean which is roasted or made into 

 flour, according to the Pen ts'ao H i, a weed growing in rice-fields. Wu 

 K'i-ts'un, author of the Ci wu min H Vu k'ao, says, "What is now hu tou, 

 grows wild, and is not the hu tou of ancient times." 4 



15. Yen hu su $j£ #i ^ denotes tubers of Corydalis ambigua: they 

 are little, hard, brown tubers, of somewhat flattened spherical form, 

 averaging half an inch in diameter. The plant is a native of Siberia, 



1 Ed. of Ci pu tsu lai ts'un Su, p. 30. 



1 Stuart (Chinese Materia Medica, p. 161) is mistaken in saying that several 

 names of this plant are "possibly transliterations of Turkic or Mongol names." 

 There are no such names on record. The tree is identified with Elcsagnus longipes 

 or pungens. 



3 Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao, Ch. 2, p. 11 b. _It is first mentioned in the Kiu hwan 

 Pen ts'ao, being also called na-ho-tou |)5 ^ B. 



4 See, further, below, p. 305. 



