386 Sino-Iranica 



and first occurs in the Co ken lu 15 $r" $$, published in 1366. The Persian 

 word has also migrated into the modern Aryan languages of India, 

 as well as into the Malayan group: Javanese kurma; Cam kuramo; 

 Malayan, Dayak, and Sunda korma; Bugi and Makassar koromma; 

 also into Khmer: rom'o, lom'd, amo. 



Following is the description of the tree given in the Yu yan tsa tsu: 

 "It is thirty to forty feet in height, 1 and has a circumference of from 

 five to six feet. The leaves resemble those of the fu fen dh W (a kind 

 of rattan), and remain ever green. It blooms in the second month. 

 The blossoms are shaped like those of the banana, and have a double 

 bottom. They open gradually; and in the fissure are formed more than 

 ten seed-cases, two inches long, yellow and white in color. When the 

 kernel ripens, the seeds are black. In their appearance they resemble 

 dried jujubes. They are good to eat and as sweet as candy." 



Another foreign word for the date is handed down by C'en Ts'ah-k'i 

 in his Pen ts*ao U i, in the form M M wu-lou, *bu-nu. He identifies 

 this term with the "Persian jujube," which he says grows in Persia, 

 and has the appearance of a jujube. Li Si-6en annotates that the mean- 

 ing of this word is not yet explained. Neither Bretschneider nor any 

 one else has commented on this name. It is strikingly identical with 

 the old Egyptian designation of the date, bunnu. 2 It is known that 

 the Arabs have an infinite number of terms for the varieties of the date 

 and the fruit in its various stages of growth, and it may be that they 

 likewise adopted the Egyptian word and transmitted it to China. The 

 common Arabic names are nakhl and tamr (Hebrew tamar, Syriac 

 temar). On the other hand, the relation of wu-lou to the Egyptian word 

 may be accidental, if we assume that wu-lou was originally the designa- 

 tion of Cycas revoluta (see below), and was only subsequently trans- 

 ferred to the date-palm. I 



The Lin piao lu i z by Liu Sun contains the following interesting 

 account: — 



"In regard to the date ('Persian jujube'), this tree may be seen in 

 the suburbs of Kwah-£ou (Canton). The trunk of the tree is entirely 

 without branches, is straight, and rises to a height of from thirty to 

 forty feet. The crown of the tree spreads in all directions, and forms 

 over ten branches. The leaves are like those of the 'sea coir-palm' 



1 It even grows to a height of sixty or eighty feet. 



2 V. Loret, Flore pharaonique, p. 34. I concur with Loret in the opinion that 

 the Egyptian word is the foundation of Greek #oiw£. The theory 'of Hehn (Kul- 

 turpflanzen, p. 273) and upheld by Schrader {ibid., p. 284), that the latter might 

 denote the Phoenician tree, does not seem to me correct. 



* Ch. b, p. 4 (see above, p. 268). 



