408 Sino-Iranica 



China. Bunge says that it is commonly cultivated in North China; but 

 that recent botanists have not seen it in South China, and the one 

 cultivated near Peking is Prunus davidiana, a variety of P. persica. 1 

 These data, however, are not in harmony with Chinese accounts which 

 attribute the cultivation of the almond to China; and it hardly sounds 

 plausible that the Chinese should confound with this tree the apricot, 

 which has been a native of their country from time immemorial. 

 Watters asserts that "the Chinese have mixed up the foreign almond 

 with their native apricot. The name of the latter is kin ■&, and the 

 kernels of its fruit, when dried for food, are called hin-Zen 1*? C; This 

 name is given also to the kernels of almonds as imported into China 

 from their resemblance in appearance and to some extent in taste to 

 the seeds of apricots." The fact that almond-meat is styled "apricot- 

 kernel" does not prove that there is a confusion between kin and kin- 

 Sen, or between almond and apricot. The confusion may be on the 

 part of foreigners who take apricot-kernels for almonds. 2 



It has been stated by Bretschneider 3 that the word pa-lan ffi R 

 (*pa-lam), used by the travellers Ye-lu C'u-ts'ai and C'ah C'un, might 

 transcribe the Persian word bdddm. This form first appears in the Sun 

 H (Ch. 490) in the account of Fu-lin, where the first element is written 

 phonetically EL, 4 so that the conclusion is almost warranted that this 

 word was transmitted from a language spoken in Fu-lin. In all prob- 

 ability, the question is of a Fu-lin word of the type palam or param (per- 

 haps *faram, fram, or even *spram). 



The fruit pa-lan must have been known in China during the Sung, 

 for it is mentioned by Fan C'en-ta f£ $ j\ (1126-93), in his Kwei hai 

 yii hen &', 5 in the description of the §i li Ti J$k (Aleurites triloba), which 



Bretschneider, Early Researches into^the Flora of China, p. 149; Forbes 

 and Hemsley, Journal Linnean Soc, Vol. XXIII, p. 217. W. C. Blasdale (Descrip- 

 tion of Some Chinese Vegetable Food Materials, p. 48, Washington, 1899) men- 

 tions a peculiar variety of the almond imported from China into San Francisco. 

 The almond is cultivated in China according to K. v. Scherzer (Berichte osterr. 

 Exped. nach Siam, China und Japan, p. 96). L. de Reinach (Le Laos, p. 280) 

 states that almond-trees grow in the northern part of Laos. 



2 F. N. Meyer (Agricultural Explorations in the Orchards of China, p. 53) 

 supposes erroneously that the consumption of apricot-kernels has given rise to the 

 statement that almonds grow in China. Cf. Schlegel's Nederlandsch-Chineesch 

 Woordenboek, Vol. I, p. 226. 



3 Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 20. 



4 Cf. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, p. 63. His identification with 

 Greek &6.\avos y which refers only to the acorn, a wild fruit, is hardly satisfactory, 

 for phonetic and historical reasons. For Hirth's translation of ff by "almonds" 

 in the same clause read "apricots." 



8 Ed. of Ci pu tsu lai ts'un Su, p. 24. 



