206 Sino-Iranica 



since his days Oriental studies have made such rapid strides, that his 

 notes with regard to India, China, and Japan, are thoroughly out of 

 date. As to China, he possessed no other information than the super- 

 ficial remarks of Bretschneider in his "Study and Value of Chinese 

 Botanical Works," 1 which teem with misunderstandings and errors. 2 

 De Candolle's conclusions as to things Chinese are no longer acceptable. 

 The same holds good for India and probably also for Egypt and western 

 Asia. In point of method, de Candolle has set a dangerous precedent 

 to botanists in whose writings this effect is still visible, and this is 

 his over-valuation of purely linguistic data. The existence of a native 

 name for a plant is apt to prove little or nothing for the history of 

 the plant, which must be based on documentary and botanical evi- 

 dence. Names, as is well known, in many cases are misleading or 

 deceptive; they constitute a welcome accessory in the chain of evidence, 

 but they cannot be relied upon exclusively. It is a different case, of 

 course, if the Chinese offer us plant-names which can be proved to be 

 of Iranian origin. If on several occasions I feel obliged to uphold 

 V. Hehn against his botanical critic A. Engler, such pleas must not 

 be construed to mean that I am an unconditional admirer of Hehn; 

 on the contrary, I am wide awake to his weak points and the short- 

 comings of his method, but wherever in my estimation he is right, it 

 is my duty to say that he is right. A book to which I owe much in- 

 formation is Charles Joret's "Les Plantes dans l'antiquite' et au 

 moyen age" (2 vols., Paris, 1897, 1904), which contains a sober and 

 clear account of the plants of ancient Iran. 3 



A work to which I am greatly indebted is " Terminologie medico- 

 pharmaceutique et anthropologique francaise-persane, " by J. L. 

 Schlimmer, lithographed at Teheran, 1874. 4 This comprehensive work 

 of over 600 pages folio embodies the lifelong labors of an instructor at 

 the Polytechnic College of Persia, and treats in alphabetical order of 

 animal and vegetable products, drugs, minerals, mineral waters, native 



1 Published in the Chinese Recorder for 1870 and 1871. 



1 They represent the fruit of a first hasty and superficial reading of the Pen 

 ts'ao kan mu without the application of any criticism. In Chinese literature we can 

 reach a conclusion only by consulting and sifting all documents bearing on a problem. 

 Bretschneider's Botanicon Sinicum, much quoted by sinologues and looked upon as 

 a sort of gospel by those who are unable to control his data, has now a merely relative 

 value, and is uncritical and unsatisfactory both from a botanical and a sinological 

 viewpoint; it is simply a translation of the botanical section of the Pen ts'ao kan mu 

 without criticism and with many errors, the most interesting plants being omitted. 



1 Joret died in Paris on December 26, 1914, at the age of eighty-five years 

 (cf. obituary notice by H. Cordier, La Geographie, 19 14, p. 239). 



* Quoted "Schlimmer, Terminologie." I wish to express my obligation to the 

 Surgeon General's Library in Washington for the loan of this now very rare book. 



