The Walnut 971 



varieties {p'ien hu t'ao, San hu t'ao, man hu t'ao, ta hu t'ao), combined 

 with the fact that two authors describe both the varieties p'ien and 

 San, raise the question whether this nomenclature does not refer to 

 different plants, and whether, aside from the wild walnut, other nuts 

 may not also be included in this group. In this respect it is of interest 

 to note that the hickory, recently discovered in Ce-kian by F. N. 

 Meyer, and determined by Sargent 1 under the name Carya cathayensis, 

 is said by Meyer to be called shan-gho-to in the colloquial language; 

 and this evidently is identical with our San hu t'ao. This certainly does 

 not mean that this term refers exclusively to the hickory, but only 

 that locally the hickory falls also within the category of San hu t'ao. 

 The distribution of the hickory over China is not yet known, and the 

 descriptions we have of San hu t'ao do not refer to Ce-kiah. 



In the P'an San U M ill A>, a description of the P'an mountains, 8 

 the term San ho t'ao is given as a synonyme for the bark of Catalpa 

 bungei (ts'iu p'i tfk $t), which is gathered on this mountain for 

 medicinal purposes, — presumably because the structure of this bark 

 bears some superficial resemblance to that of a walnut. Wild walnuts, 

 further, are mentioned as growing on Mount Si fu 2un j§ ^ H \U , 

 forming part of the Ma-ku Mountains M. ft£ \U situated in Fu-cou 

 flU 'H\ in the prefecture of Kien-C'an M. H /fr, Kiah-si Province. 8 



While the cultivated walnut was known in China during the fourth 

 century under the Tsin dynasty, the wild species indigenous to south- 

 ern China was brought to the attention of scholars only several cen- 

 turies later, toward the close of the T'ang period. This case furnishes 

 an excellent object-lesson, in that it reveals the fallacies to which 

 botanists and others are only too frequently subject in drawing con- 

 clusions from mere botanical evidence as to cultivated plants. The 

 favorite argumentation is, that if, in a certain region, a wild and a 

 corresponding cultivated species co-exist, the cultivated species is simply 

 supposed to have been derived from the wild congener. This is a de- 

 ceptive conclusion. The walnut (as well as the vine) of China offers a 



1 Plantae Wilsonianae, Vol. Ill, p. 187. 



* Ch. 15, p. 2 b, of the edition published in 1755 by order of K'ien-luh. The 

 P'an San is situated three or four days' journey east of Peking, in the province of 

 Ci-li, the summit being crowned by an interesting Buddhist temple, and there being 

 an imperial travelling-station at its foot. It was visited by me in September, 1901. 

 P. N. Meyer (Agricultural Explorations in the Orchards of China, p. 52) says that 

 in the Pangshan district east of Peking one may still find a few specimens of the real 

 wild walnut growing in ravines among large bowlders in the mountains. 



' Ma-ku San U (Ch. 3, p. 6 b), written by members of the family Hwah ^f, and 

 published in 1866 by the Tun t'ien su wu t^I ^ 1§f M.- These mountains contain 

 thirty-six caves dedicated to the Taoist goddess Ma-ku. 



