BOTANICON SINICUM. 65 
flower tree) is applied to Albizzia Julibrissin. The latter specific 
name is a corruption of the Persian gul i abreshum, meaning also 
silk-flower. This name is given on account of the silky appear- 
ance of the long stamens. 
There are in China a considerable number of cultivated plants 
which have been introduced from foreign countries, especially 
from India, Central and Western Asia. ‘The Chinese have often 
tried to render the foreign names of these plants by Chinese 
sounds. The Pen ts‘ao kang mu frequently quotes Sanscrit 
names (4 fan). Thus the 2 @ so lo is the Shorea robusta, sal 
or sé/a in Sanscrit. Buddha is said to have died under a Sal tree, 
for which reason the tree is also styled 5K fii HE t‘ien shi li 
(Chestnut of the heavenly preceptor). But as there are no Sal 
trees in China the Buddhist priests in the temples usually culti- 
vate Aesculus chinensis under the above names.—The Sanscrit 
name of Sandalwood, chandane, is rendered in the Pen ts‘ao kang 
mu by the sounds fff fi chan tan—The Jack-fruit, Artocarpus 
integrifolia, is termed jk 2 3 po lo mi in Chinese. This is 
evidently a transcription of the Sanscrit paramita, excellent.— 
The Pen ts‘ao kang mu speaks of a Western Asiatic plant 
i YZ: BR sa_fa lang, and the particulars given about this plant 
leave no doubt that Saffron is meant. 
The plant gj Jf [, 2u Ju pa, cultivated in China and said to be 
of foreign origin, is apparently Trigonella fenum grecum, hulba 
in Arabic.” 
The descriptive details of plants as found in the Pen ts‘ao kang 
mu and other treatises of this class are generally meagre and un- 
satisfactory. The time of flowering and the colour of the flowers 
are always noted; but the other particulars are insufficient, because 
the Chinese, in speaking of the parts and organs of plants, have 
no botanical terminology, the leaves, flowers, fruits, ete. being 
described by comparison with the same organs of other Chinese 
plants, frequently unknown to European readers. This was 
however also the mode of describing plants adopted by the cele- — 
brated Dioscorides (first century of our a), and followed by our 
22 At least in Japan the above Chinese sis ix epptad to a variety of Te fenam on 
grecum. Franch, Sav. Enum. pl. japon. I, 9.—So mo kou XLV. exist: cus ee 
