The Walnut 265 



in the northern part of China (^b ~JS %> M £,), — a statement repeated 

 in the K'ai-pao pen ts'ao. The Yu yah tsa tsu, which is well informed 

 on the cultivated plants of Western and Central Asia, does not contain 

 the tradition relating to Can K'ien, but, on the other hand, does not 

 speak of the tree as a novel introduction, nor does it explain its name. 

 It begins by saying that "the kernel of the walnut is styled 'toad' 

 ha-mo i|t ^. " l 



Mon Sen j£ I5fe, who in the second half of the seventh century wrote 

 the $i liao pen ts'ao, 2 warns people from excessive indulgence in walnuts 

 as being injurious to health. 3 The T'ai p'ih hwan yu ki ;fc *r &t -f' Hti, 

 by Yo Si f^ it. (published during the period T'ai-p'ih, a.d. 976-981), 

 mentions the walnut as being cultivated in the prefecture of Fun-sian 

 B* ffli in Sen-si Province, and in Kiah cbu 1& 'M in San-si Province. 4 



According to the Pen ts'ao kah mu, the term hu t'ao first appears in 

 the Pen ts'ao of the K'ai-pao period (968-976) of the Sung dynasty, 

 written by Ma Ci E$ iS; that is to say, the plant or its fruit was then 

 officially sanctioned and received into the pharmacopoeia for the first 

 time. We have seen that it was certainly known prior to that date. 

 K'ou Tsuh-si 7cl ^ Ifil, in his Pen ts'ao yen i ^ ^ $T i§ of 1116, 5 has a 

 notice on the medicinal application of the fruit. 



It is possible also to trace in general the route which the walnut has 

 taken in its migration into China. It entered from Turkistan into 

 Kan-su Province, as stated by Su Sun (see above, p. 258), and gradually 

 spread first into Sen-si, and thence into the eastern provinces, but always 

 remained restricted to the northern part of the country. Su Sun ex- 

 pressly says that walnuts do not occur in the south, but only in the 

 north, being plentiful in Sen-si and Lo-yan (Ho-nan Province), while 

 those grown in K'ai-fun (Pien cou^ 'M) were not of good quality. In the 

 south only a wild-growing variety was known, which is discussed 

 below. Wan Si-mou 3: 1fr ^, a native of Kian-su, who died in 1591, 

 states in his Kwo su ^ Eft, a treatise on garden-fruits, that "the walnut 

 is a northern fruit (pei kwo ^b ^), and thrives in mountains; that it 

 is but rarely planted in the south, yet can be cultivated there." Almost 



1 This definition is ascribed to the Ts'ao mu tse ^L ;fv ~F" in the Ko li kin yuan 

 (Ch. 76, p. 5); that work was written by Ye Tse-k'i ^ J" -frf in 1378 (Wylie, 

 Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 168). 



2 Bretschneider, Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 45. 



3 T'an Sun pai k'un leu Vie, Ch. 99, p. 12. 



4 T'ai p'in hwan yu ki, Ch. 30, p. 4; Ch. 47, p. 4 (ed. of Kin-lin Su ku, 1882). 



6 Ch. 18, p. 6 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan). 



6 Also J. de Loureiro (Flora cochinchinensis, p. 702) states that the habitat of 

 Juglans regia is only in the northern provinces of China. 



