The Almond 407 



as far as I know, is first mentioned in the Yu yah tsa tsu, 1 where it is 

 said, "The flat peach fin !# grows in the country Po-se (Persia), where 

 it is styled p'o-tan. The tree reaches a height of from fifty to sixty feet, 

 and has a circumference of four or five feet. Its leaves resemble those 

 of the peach, but are broader and larger. The blossoms, which are 

 white in color, appear in the third month. When the blossoms drop, the 

 formation of the fruit has the appearance of a peach, but the shape 

 is flat. Hence they are called 'flat peaches.' The meat is bitter and 

 acrid, and cannot be chewed; the interior of the kernel, however, is 

 sweet, and is highly prized in the Western Regions and all other coun- 

 tries." Although the fact of the introduction of the plant into China 

 is not insisted upon by the author, Twan C'en-si, his description, which 

 is apparently based on actual observation, may testify to a cultivation 

 in the soil of his country. This impression is corroborated by the testi- 

 mony of the Arabic merchant Soleiman, who wrote in a.d. 851, and 

 enumerates almonds among the fruit growing in China. 2 The cor- 

 rectness of the Chinese reproduction of the Iranian name is confirmed 

 by the Tibetan form ba-dam, Uigur and Osmanli badam, and Sanskrit 

 vatdma or bdddtna, derived from the Middle Persian. 3 



The fundamental text of the Yu yah tsa tsu has unfortunately es- 

 caped Li Si-cen, author of the Pen ts'ao kah tnu, and he is accordingly 

 led to the vague definition that the almond comes from the old terri- 

 tory of the Mohammedans; in his time, he continues, the tree occurred 

 in all places West of the Pass (Kwan si; that is, Kan-su and Sen-si). 

 The latter statement is suppressed in Bretschneider's translation of 

 the text, 4 probably because it did not suit his peremptory opinion that 

 the almond-tree does not occur in China. He did not know, either, of 

 the text of the Yu yah tsa tsu, and his vague data were adopted by A. 

 de Candolle. 8 



Loureiro 6 states that the almond is both wild and cultivated in 



1 Ch. 18, p. 10 b. 



2 M. Reinaud, Relation des voyages, Vol. I, p. 22. 



* Cf. the writer's Loan-Words in Tibetan, No. m. It should be repeated also 

 in this place that the Tibetan term p'a-tin, which only means "dried apricots," 

 bears no relation to the Persian designation of the almond, as wrongly asserted by 

 Watters. — The almond is also known to the Lo-lo (Nyi Lo-lo ni-ma, Ahi Lo-lo 

 i-ni-zo, i-sa). 



* Chinese Recorder, 1870, p. 176. 



s Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 219. He speaks erroneously of the Pen ts'ao 

 published in the tenth or eleventh century. Bretschneider, of course, meant the 

 Pen ts'ao of the sixteenth century. 



6 Flora cochinchinensis, p. 316. Perrot and Hurrier (Matiere m^dicale et 

 pharm. sino-annamites, p. 153) have an Amygdalus cochinchinensis for Annam. 



