240 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
See the Rh ya [75], where the name is written jsf meng 
and identified with A ff pet mu, which latter term Lueee 
translates by mother-of-pearl, but Wuutams [ Dict., a0g] 
more correctly by cowrie-mother [see further on]. 
Lu xt:—The meng or pei mu is a medicinal plant. Its 
leayes resemble those of the kua lou (7 'richosanthes), but 
are smaller. The seeds are produced beneath the root and 
resemble those of the 3% yi (Colocasia). They are white, 
quadrangular shaped, of various sizes, and connected together. 
The Chinese author, in this confused account, seems to 
confound the seeds with the small bulbils forming the corm 
of the plant. 
Father Davip saw the Chinese plant, whose bulbs furnish 
the drug pez mu, at Moupin, on the borders of Tibet. Accord- 
ing to Francner (Pl. Davidiane, 11, 130] this is Fritillaria 
Roylii, Hook, with yellow flowers. Another, new species, a 
P Davidii, likewise found at Moupin, is described as having 2 
corms formed of a number of small bulbils. It is, 1 suppose, — 
the same with respect to the corms of the other species. - 
Fortune in his Wa anderings [261] notices a Fritillaria wi 
greyish white flowers, cultivated for its bulbs, near Ning 
This is probably the pei mu exported from Ningpo, mentioned 
in the Reports on Trade, Chinese Maritime Customs, for 1869, | 
p- 66, where some interesting details regarding this drug 
are giy en. 
ae the So moku [V, 81] Bl Pf is Fritillaria Thunbergit 
Mig. But neither the account of the pei mu as given 
P., XIII, 39, nor the drawing in Ch., VII, 42 (a plant. with 
3 Sai: leaves) agrees with Fritillaria. Lu KI, as We have 
seen, makes the pei mu to have palmate leaves. The leaves 
of Fritillaria are generally linear lanceolate, in some speclé 
broader, elliptical. The Chinese drug pei mu ( bulbs 
resembles indeed, as the Chinese name implies, the 
