198 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
383.—Twice in the text of the Shi king we find the charac- a 
ters JX JR kua and tie associated. Page 469 :—Lxe@GE 2 
translates hua tie by gourds (“the gourds planted by Hou tst 
yielded abundantly.”) Page 437, he renders the same term 
by “the gourds and the tie.” ag 
The te is given in the Rh ya [58] as a synonym for 
IB cho. 
Lrcer explains the character tie (after Cau Hr it seems) 
as meaning the gourd near the root, where it begins, very 
small as compared with the wa when it has grown and 
extended with a vast development of tendrils and leaves. = 
I prefer to this obscure explanation, the definition given by 
K‘une Yrxo-ra, who states that in the Han dynasty the term 
tie was applied to the small kua, wv JK, whilst by JR the 
large kinds were denoted. But here again it is impossible 
_to decide whether gourds or melons are meant. The Chinese a 
cultivate small varieties of Cucurbita maxima and have also 
melons of a very small size, : 
384,—o hu; @ hu (it means a pot, and is also written $f), 
98 pao and i priao, : 
All these names in the Classics refer to Lagenaria — 
milgaris, L., the Calabash or Bottle gourd and its varieties. 
Lecee translates them by bottle gourd, gourd, melon ; Biot 
by “citronille” (pumpkin) [ Chou li, 1, 383, note]. 
4%, 1, 807 [ Yue ling] :—Melons ( JK) and gourds (ff). 
Shi king, 420 :—Of the gourd (4f) leaves some are taken 
nae boiled. 271:—In the south are trees with curved 
drooping branches and the sweet gourds (ff @§) cling to 
them. Cuv Hi explains that there are sweet and bitter hv. 
95 :—Her (a lady’s) teeth were like melon-seeds ff J#- The 
second character here stands for #. See the Rh ya [21]. : 
Cu Hr explains : The section of 2 melon showing the seeds — 
regular and white, te 
