50 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
a second edition in 4 books, the one now current, appeared in 1559 
with a preface hy fi He Lu tung. This edition was in the pos- 
session of Klaproth (see the catalogue of his Chinese and other 
books No. 145). It was reprinted at the end of the well-known 
Thesaurus of Agriculture, the Nung ch‘eng ts‘itian shu, of which 
we shall speak further on, 
The Kiu huang pen ts‘ao is not a simple compilation from 
earlier treatises, but for the greater part an original work based 
upon the author’s own experience. As his principal abode was in 
K‘ai feng fu, all the plants recorded in his treatise belong to the 
Flora of Honan, or are cultivated there. The districts and 
mountains mentioned in it are generally situated south of the — 
Yellow River, and west and south-west of K‘ai feng fu. The 
name of the district of y Jfi (hien) occurs frequently, and 
also that of #f Hui (hien), which is north of the Yellow River. — 
The province of Honan seems to be very rich in interesting plants, 
especially mountain plants, drugs, but has never been explored by 
western botanical collectors. : 
The Kiu huang pen ts‘ao describes in all 414 plants, 138 of 
which were recorded in previous works on Materia medica, 276 
being new. The matter is arranged in five classes, viz.: Herbs, Trees, 
Cereals, Fruits, and Vegetables. Each plant is represented by _ 
an original drawing. As far as I can judge from the plants 
known to me these drawings are tolerably true to nature. It 
must not be forgotten that the original wood-cuts date from a 
time when engravings on wood were altogether unknown in 
Europe. Many of the delineations in this Chinese work are 
certainly superior to some European wood-cuts of the 17th cen-— 
tury, as, for instance, those in Bontius’ Hist. nat. Indie orient. 
1629. 
Among the plants depicted and described in the ancient Chines 
treatise the following can be ascertained, I enumerate them in 
the order followed in the Kiu huang pen ts‘ao, grouping the 
species according to the parts of the plant used for food. 
16 According to E, Meyer's Geschichte der Botanik, IV, 278, the earliest European 
wood-cuts representing plants are found in Cunrat yon Megenberg’s Buch der Natur, - 
the first edition of which was printed in Augsburg, in 1475, ry 
