The Fig 413 



Persia. 1 We have, however, the testimony of the Arabic merchant Solei- 

 man, who wrote in a.d. 851, to the effect that the fig then belonged to 

 the fruits of China. 2 



Bretschneider has never written on the subject, but did communicate 

 some notes to the botanist Solms-Laubach, from whom they were taken 

 over by G. Eisen. 3 Here we are treated to the monstrous statement, 

 "The fig is supposed to have reached China during the reign of the 

 Emperor Tschang-Kien [sic!], who fitted out an expedition to Turan 

 in the year 127 a.d." [sic!]. It is safe to say that Bretschneider could 

 not have perpetrated all this nonsense; but, discounting the obvious 

 errors, there remains the sad fact that again he credited Can K'ien with 

 an introduction which is not even ascribed to him by any Chinese text. 

 It is not necessary to be more Chinese than the Chinese, and this 

 Changkienomania is surely disconcerting. What a Hercules this Can 

 K'ien must have been ! It has never happened in the history of the world 

 that any individual ever introduced into any country such a stupendous 

 number of plants as is palmed off on him by his epigone admirers. 



Li Si-cen, in his notice of the "flowerless fruit," does not fall back 

 on any previous Pen ts'ao; of older works he invokes only the Yu yah 

 tsa tsu and the Fan yii U J] % 1&, which mention the udambara of 

 Kwan-si. 



The fig of Yun-nan deserves special mention. Wu K'i-tsun, 

 author of the excellent botanical work Ci wu mih H Vu k'ao, has de- 

 voted a special chapter (Ch. 36) to the plants of Yun-nan, the first of 

 these being the yu-Van (udambara) flower, accompanied by two illus- 

 trations. From the texts assembled by him it becomes clear that this 

 tree was introduced into Yun-nan from India by Buddhist monks. 

 Among other stories, he repeats that regarding the monk P'u-t'i(Bodhi)- 

 pa-po, which has been translated by C. Sainson; 4 but whereas Yah Sen, 

 in his Nan lao ye H f written in 1550, said that one of these trees planted 

 by the monk was still preserved in the Temple of the Guardian Spirit 

 dfc. i i$! of Yun-nan fu, Wu K'i-tsun states after the Yiin-nan Vuh U 

 that for a long time none remained in existence, owing to the ravages 

 and burnings of troops. Judging from the illustration, the fig-tree of 

 Yun-nan is a species different from Ficus carica. The genus Ficus 



1 Contrary to what is stated by A. de Candolle (Origin of Cultivated Plants, 

 p. 296) after Bretschneider. But the description of the fig in that Chinese work 

 leaves no doubt that the author speaks from observation, and that the fig, 

 accordingly, was cultivated in the China of his time. 



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



3 Op. cit., p. 20. 



4 Histoire du Nan-Tchao, p. 196. 



