130 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
Treaty Ports, the scientific names for Chinese plants have been 
derived. The authors of these dictionaries generally rely upon 
P. Smith, and it is to be regretted that such names as for instance 
Corchorus pyriformis, Cucumis longa, given by him as scientific 
denominations, but unintelligible to botanists, have found their 
way from his Chinese Materia medica even into Dr. Williams’ 
valuable dictionary (p. 861, 466). The latter gives generally, as 
far as Chinese Botany is concerned, the best information ob- 
tainable. 
I should not close these remarks without cautioning the student 
of Chinese Botany against a French essay towards identifying 
Chinese names of plants, which was published ten years ago, and 
is the worst of its kind we have had the misfortune to notice. It 
is from the untrustworthy pen of P. Perny, and appeared as an 
appendix to his Dictionnaire Frangais-Latin- Chinois, 1872, a 
pretentious work beautifully printed, but which, I am sorry to 
say, puts sinologues to blush. As to the botanical part, the author 
says (General Preface and Preface to the Appendix on Natural 
History): “La synonymie que nous donnons ici est probablement 
la plus compléte qui.ait parue jusqu’A ce jour” (he should have 
added “et la plus erronée”). Indeed Perny identifies 2375 names 
of Chinese plants. He reproduces occasionally previously-made 
identifications (Hoffmann and Schultes, Williams), but the bulk 
of the “‘synonymie” is peculiar to the author’s “researches.” We 
may ask how he succeeded in bringing together such a mass of 
erroneous notions on the most common and generally known 
subjects, for it is not too much to say that it is difficult to meet 
with one correct statement in this essay. Even a student of 
Chinese unacquainted with Chinese Botany knows that a 
ku ts2 is not Rice, as Perny asserts (1993), but Millet (Setaria 
italica); that J, 2 siao mai is not Rye (2136), but Wheat; that 
#fi po is not Stillingia sebifera (2201), but Thuja, or sometimes 
the Cypress; that § $$ po yang is not the Cypress (852), but the 
Poplar ; and that the Water-melon is not £% IK sz hua (which is 
a Luffu), and also not 7 jp (1744), but BG I st hua. 
