The Walnut 263 



lun nan, It-Si, etc., to be brought to the capital C'an-nan, and to be 

 planted in the Fu-li Palace £fc %b »lf , founded in commemoration of the 

 conquest of Nan-yue, whereupon many gardeners lost their lives when 

 the crops of the li-U proved a failure. 1 Several of his palaces were named 

 for the fruits cultivated around them: thus there were a Grape-Palace 

 and a Pear-Palace. Hence the thought that in this exposition of foreign 

 fruits the walnut should not be wanting, easily impressed itself on the 

 mind of a subsequent writer. Wu Kun may also have had knowledge 

 of the Can-K'ien tradition of the Po wu U, and thus believed himself 

 consistent in ascribing walnuts to the Han palaces. Despite his ana- 

 chronism, it is interesting to note Wu Kun's opinion that the walnut 

 came from Central Asia or Turkistan. 



It is not probable that the walnut was generally known in China 

 earlier than the fourth century a.d., under the Eastern Tsin M U 

 dynasty (2 65-41 o). 2 In the Tsin kun ko min If *$£ 18 ^, a description 

 of the palaces of the Tsin emperors, written during that dynasty, 3 it is 

 stated that there were eighty-four walnut-trees in the Hwa-lin Park 



1 The palace Fu-li was named for the li-li -j$ $£ (see Sanfu hwan t'u H $§ ^C 

 gS . Ch. 3, p. 9 b, ed. of Han Wei ts'un lu). 



1 Bretschneider (Bot. Sin., pt. I, p. 39) asserts that Juglans regia figures 

 among the plants mentioned passingly in the Nan fan ts'ao mu Swan by Ki Han 

 |f &, a minister of state under the Emperor Hui j§ of the Tsin dynasty 

 (a.d. 290-306) . He does not give any particulars. There are only two allusions to the 

 walnut, that I am able to trace in this work: in the description of the coco-nut, 

 the taste of this fruit is likened to that of the walnut; and the flavor of the "stone 

 chestnut" {li-li ^EJ ££, Aleurites triloba) is compared with that of the same fruit. 

 We know at present that the book in question contains interpolations of later date 

 (see L. Aurousseau, Bull, de I'Ecole franqaise, Vol. XIV, 1914, p. 10); but to these 

 the incidental mention of the walnut does not necessarily belong, as Ki Han lived 

 under the Tsin. It is likewise of interest that the walnut is not dealt with as a special 

 item in the Ts'i min yao lu, a work on husbandry and economic botany, written by 

 Kia Se-niu |a£ JB> §.&> of the Hou Wei dynasty (a.d. 386-534) ; see the enumeration 

 of plants described in this book in Bretschneider {op. cit., p. 78). In this case, the 

 omission does not mean that the tree was unknown to the author, but it means only 

 that it had then not attained any large economic importance. It had reached the 

 palace-gardens, but not the people. In fact, Kia Se-niu, at least in one passage 

 (Ch. 10, p. 48 b, ed. 1896), incidentally mentions the walnut in a quotation from the 

 Kiao lou ki ^ >}\\ |2 by Liu Hin-k'i £lj /ft J0, where it is said, "The white yuan 

 tree £j K«l [evidently = |$|<] is ten feet high, its fruits being sweeter and finer 

 than walnuts $J $|j." As the Kiao lou ki is a work relating to the products of 

 Annam, it is curious, of course, that it should allude to the cultivated walnut, which 

 is almost absent in southern China and Annam; thus it is possible that this clause 

 may be an interpolation, but possibly it is not. The fact that the same work like- 

 wise contains the tradition connecting the walnut with Can K'ien has been pointed 

 out above. The tree pai yuan is mentioned again in the Pen ts'ao kan mu li i (Ch. 8, 

 p. 23), where elaborate rules for the medicinal employment of the fruit are given. 



• Bretschneider, Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 202, No. 945. 



