PLANTS MENTIONED IN CLASSICAL WORKS, 911 
Shu king 117 [Tribute of Yi] :—The chu mentioned as a 
product of ff Jp] Yi chou (Honan). Lage translates in- 
_ correctly coarser hempen cloth. 
In the text of the Chou li the character chu occurs once 
[1,163]. See the quotation above under 388. Buror translates 
“toiles claires.” This fabric is twice mentioned by the 
Chinese commentators on the Chou li [1, 32] where Bror 
translates “ étoffes fines de soie,” and [I, 379] thou. 
— £P, XV, 51, Chu ma, Boehmeria nivea. Figured in 
- the Kin huang, LI, 7, Ch, XLV, 1, 3. | 
Amen exot., 891 :—® Tsjo, vulgo sjiro 00, Cannabis alba, 
alits karauusi, karao et mao. Urtiea vulgaris major, vere 
florens, caule filis validis ad texturas expetitis instructo; _ 
Semine acerrimo, ex quo oleum causticum exprimitur. 
So moku, XX, 4 :— 25 fi Bochmeria nivea. Stes., Syn. plant. 
@con., 171 :—Urtica nivea, mao, 8 ji Cortex pro funibus, 
liber pro linteo subtili. 
V. supra, 388. 
V.—Tinctorial Plants. 
_892.—The character # lan is applied as a generic term to 
plants furnishing x blue dye. In the //uai nan tseS [2nd 
_ Century B C,] we read $F HE #& BE, the blue colour is yielded 
by the lan (plant). The Shuo wen defines lan by fu i 
4 plant (or plants) which dyes a blue colour, But nowadays 
the Principal meaning of Jan is “blue, a blue colour.” 
We meet several times with the term /an in the Chinese 
Classics, Legge translates it by Indigo plant. 
Shi king, 412 :—All the morning I gather the Indigo plant. 
>is Li ki, I, 274 [Yue ling]:—Second month of summer. 
The people are forbidden to cut down the Indigo plant (/an) 
_ 0 use it for dyeing, 
