ee ee, 
_—-Berlin, 1822. 
BOTANICON SINICUM. 95 
the Tang dynasty, in the 8th and 9th centuries, with the Empire 
of the Kalifs, it seems by sea as well as by the overland route. 
In Chinese works of that period we find not infrequent accounts 
of remarkable natural productions of Western Asia. I may only 
notice here the P9 pH # 4H Yu yang tsa tsu, in 20 books, writ- 
ten by BZ & st Zuan Cheng shi, towards the end of the 8th 
century (Wylie l.c. 155). According to Mayers (Chin. Read. Man. 
p- 211) the author died in 863. The Yu yang tsa tsu contains 
much information regarding the productions of China and of 
foreign countries, especially India and Persia. 
There is a Chinese Vocabulary of Foreign Languages, published 
by the py F& fy Sv ct huan, or Department of Interpreters,” ap- 
parently in the 15th century, in which amongst other terms are 
given also the names of the most common plants in Chinese and 
in Persian Uigur, Siamese, Tibetan, Burmese and two other 
languages of some tribes at the Southern border of China. The 
words are all written in the original letters of the respective 
nations, and their pronunciation is indicated by Chinese characters. 
These vocabularies form an interesting contribution towards our 
knowledge of Asiatic names of plants. The Uigur names present 
4 peculiar interest, as very little is known of this language. I 
may here mention that Mr. Scully has lately published two Turki 
Vocabularies of Birds and Plants in Mr. R. B.Shaw’s Vocabulary 
of the Language of Eastern Turkistan. 
Let me notice finally the Pq $R FE] GE Si yii t'u chi, a Descrip- 
tion of Eastern Turkistan and the Chinese dependencies in the 
West, illustrated by a series of maps. It was published in 1756, 
in 52 books. In book 48 some details with respect to the natural 
productions of these regions are given. We find there the native 
(Turki) names (rendered by Chinese sounds) of more than fifty 
common plants, with the Chinese equivalents. ae 
39 See Klaproth’s Verzeichniss der Chines. und Mandsh. Biicher der Bibliothek in ee 
