FENUGREEK 



50. In regard to the fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecuni, French 

 fenugrec), Chinese hu-lu-pa (Japanese koroha) t$ M. Br, Stuart 1 states 

 without further comment that the seeds of this leguminous plant were 

 introduced into the southern provinces of China from some foreign 

 country. But Bretschneider 2 had correctly identified the Chinese 

 name with Arabic hulba (xulba). The plant is first mentioned in the 

 Pen ts'ao of the Kia-yu period (a.d. 1056-64) of the Sung dynasty, 

 where the author, Can Yii-si # M £§, says that it grows in the prov- 

 inces of Kwan-tun and Kwei-cou, and that, according to some, the 

 species of Lin-nan represents the seeds of the foreign lo-po (Raphanus 

 sativus), but that this point has not yet been investigated. Su Sun, 

 in his T x u kin pen ts'ao, states that "the habitat of the plant is at present 

 in Kwah-tun, and that in the opinion of some the seeds came from 

 Hai-nan and other barbarians; passengers arriving on ships planted 

 the seeds in Kwan-tuii (Lin-wai), where the plant actually grows, but 

 its seeds do not equal the foreign article; the seeds imported into China 

 are really good." Then their employment in the pharmacopoeia is 

 discussed. 3 The drug is also mentioned in the Pen ts'ao yen i. 4 



The transcription hu-lu-pa is of especial interest, because the 

 element hu forms part of the transcription, but may simultaneously 

 imply an allusion to the ethnic name Hu. The form of the transcription 

 shows that it is post-T'ang; for under the T'ang the phonetic equiva- 

 lent of the character $J was still possessed of an initial guttural, and a 

 foreign element xu would then have been reproduced by a quite different 

 character. 



The medical properties of the plant are set forth by Abu Mansur in 

 his Persian pharmacopoeia under the name hulbat. 6 The Persian name 



1 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 442. 



2 Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 65. 



3 Stuart (/. c.) says wrongly that the seeds have been in use as a medicine since 

 the T'ang dynasty; this, however, has been the case only since the Sung. I do not 

 know of any mention of the plant under the T'ang. This negative documentary 

 evidence is signally confirmed by the transcription of the name, which cannot have 

 been made under the T'ang. 



* Ch. 12, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan). 



6 Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 47. Another Persian form is hulya. In Arme- 

 nian it is hulba or hulbe (E. Seidel, Mechithar, p. 183). See also Leclerc, Traite" 



446 



