RICINUS 



40. In regard to Ricinus communis (family Euphorbiaceae) the 

 accounts of the Chinese are strikingly deficient and unsatisfactory. 

 There can be no doubt that it is an introduced plant in China, as it 

 occurs there only in the cultivated state, and is not mentioned earlier 

 than the T'ang period (618-906) with an allusion to the Hu. 1 Su Kun 

 states in the T'an pen ts'ao, "The leaves of this plant which is culti- 

 vated by man resemble those of the hemp (Cannabis sativa), being very 

 large. The seeds look like cattle-ticks (niu pei 4 1 4$) . 2 The stems of 

 that kind which at present comes from the Hu 3 are red and over ten 

 feet high. They are of the size of a tsao kia -S $S (Gleditschia sinensis). 

 The kernels are the part used, and they are excellent." It would seem 

 from this report that two kinds of Ricinus are assumed, one presumably 

 the white-stemmed variety known prior to Su Kuh's time, and the red- 

 stemmed variety introduced in his age. Unfortunately we receive no 

 information as to the exact date and provenience of the introduction. 



The earliest mention of the plant is made by Herodotus, 4 who 

 ascribes it to the Egyptians who live in the marshes and use the oil 

 pressed from the seeds for anointing their bodies. He calls the plant 

 silliky prion* and gives the Egyptian name as kiki. 6 In Hellas it grows 

 spontaneously (avrdnara <£v€tcu), but the iEgyptians cultivate it along 

 the banks of the rivers and by the sides of the lakes, where it produces 

 fruit in abundance, which, however, is malodorous. This fruit is 



1 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 17 A, p. II. Bretschneider (Chinese Recorder, 1871, 

 p. 242) says that it cannot be decided from Chinese books whether Ricinus is in- 

 digenous to China or not, and that the plant is not mentioned before the T'ang. 

 The allusion to the Hu escaped him. 



2 Hence the name j£ or j[ffc £| P 6 * ma (only in the written language) for the 

 plant (Peking colloquial ta ma, "great hemp ")• This etymology has already been ad- 

 vanced by Su Sun of the Sung and confirmed by Li Si-cen, who explains the insect as 

 the "louse of cattle." This interpretation appears to be correct, for it represents a 

 counterpart to Latin ricinus, which means a "tick": Nostri earn ricinum vocant a 

 similitudine seminis (Pliny, xv, 7, § 25). The Chinese may have hit upon this simile 

 independently, or, what is even more likely, received it with the plant from the West. 



1 This appears to be the foundation for Stuart's statement (Chinese Materia 

 Medica, p. 378) that the plant was introduced from "Tartary." 



4 n, 94. 



s The common name was tcpbrwr (Theophrastus, Hist, plant., I. x, 1), Latin 

 croton. 



5 This word has not yet been traced in the hieroglyphic texts, but in Coptic. 

 In the demotic documents Ricinus is deqam (V. Loret, Flore pharaonique, p. 49). 



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