196 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
Li ki, 1, 82:—He who pares a melon tor the Son of 
Heaven should divide it into four parts and then into 
eight and cover them with a napkin of fine linen. I, | 
307 [Yiie ling]: Melons. 1 433:—The Son of Heaven 
planted gourds. YT 461 [* Diet of the Ancient Chinese ”] :— 
Cucumbers (MM). 
Calendar of the Hia, 65 :—Fifth month. Clothed are the 
melons, 91:—Ninth month. Sliced are the melons. 
In the text of the Chou li the character J does not 
appear, it seems. The character jif{ occurs there once 
[I, 383] and Bior translates it by “fruits sans noyaux.” 
Commentator B. (CHENG Hitan) dit JX melons, % citrouilles. 
mn PF. ARKH 1 article Ht MM tien kuna (sweet Iaua), 
nowadays the common name for melons, also ff JK han hua, 
which has the same meaning. Li Sai-cHEN suggests that 
the kua mentioned in the aboye-quoted passage from the 
Li ki [1, 82] was a melon. He seems to be right. But as 
to the other quotations we are left in doubt whether the hua 
there _mentioned were melons or what we call pumpkins, 
gourds, squashes, i.e, species of the genus Cucurbita. Nowa-— 
day: s the Chinese cultivate throughout the empire the 
Cucurbita maxima or Melon Pumpkin (the potiron of the 
French), the C, Pepo ov Pumpkin gourd, and C. moschata. 
Of the C. marima they have many varieties, varying — 
considerably in size and shape of the fruit and in the colour 2 
of the skin, At Peking they are called jj Jw nan kua and — 
& Bi fan kua. They are generally of large size, but there — 
1s also a variety which is not larger than a peach. It is — 
called. 52 AL MG, tao rh hung nan kuna, red peach 
pumpkin, Cucurbita moschata is (E M wo kua. The Benin-— 
casa cerifera, A I tung kua, is also much grown in China. — 
The surface of its large fruit is coyered with a waxy 
exudation, dai 
