384 



Origin of the vernacular Names. 



If the names Kalch and Ushaq (Fashook) were nomina 

 ijenerka as early as the beginning of the 13th century, where did 

 they originate ami what was their original meaning ? To answer 

 this question the assistance of the linguist has, of course, to be 

 called in, but up to a certain point the botanist is able to prepare 

 the way. We find the name Kalch — i.e., the name of the plant 

 already mentioned in Ebn al Aw wain's ' Book of Agriculture '* — 

 (10th to 12th century) and in Assaf's (the Jew's) list f of 

 medicines (10th or 11th century). In the latter it occurs 

 as an Aramaic name and synonym of Ammoniakon. As the 

 Aramaic language was already dying out at the time when Assaf 

 wrote, we may assume that its origin lies much further back. 

 Low interpretes Kalch as 'cava arundo,' so that its application 

 to ammoniacum-yielding Ferulas is a parallel to that of Kana 

 (canna arundo), both being descriptive of the full-grown stems of 

 those Ferulas. The term Kalch takes us back therefore to one of 

 the oldest members of the Semitic languages, and there can be little 

 doubt that it was in use for the Cyrenaic ammoniacum plant long 

 before it found its way into Morocco with the Arab conquerors. 

 With the tenacity which characterises vernaculars connected with 

 oriental folklore it has survived not only in Morocco and the 

 Cyrenaica, but also further east on the frontier of Egypt and Syria 

 where Ascherson found this name applied to a third species of 

 Ferula, possibly F. sinaitica. As to Fashook, I have already 

 stated that it is evidently only a slight variation of the Arabic 

 Ushuq or Ushaq which appears as Woshak and Washak with early 

 writers. The first authors to mention it are probably Honain Ben 

 Isahaq (9th century) and Mazargawaih or Mohammed Ben Zakaria 

 (.Hh to 10th century), both quoted by Ebn Baiter.} Then we find it 

 in the 10th century with Mowafik§ in his Liber Fundamentorum 

 (about D7d), and after that with practically all the Arabic writers, 

 ihrough Serapion the younger, a contemporary of Ebn Baiter, 

 (Wth century) it found its way into the books of the school of 

 fealernoH and into Matthioli's commentary of Dioscorides. In the 

 torment occurs as "vasac" or "fasaac (fasac)" and in the latter as 

 raxach seu assach" or "assac"; "raxach" being obviously a 

 misreading for "vaxach." I cannot venture to discuss the 

 etymology of Ushaq and its variations ; but I may perhaps be per- 

 mitted to call attention to the following fact, Dioscorides calls the 

 plant, according to the Codex Vindobonensis (C) and the usual 

 editions of his Materia Afedica, Agasyllon or Agasyllis, a name 

 wnicn has, so far as I know, not been explained, nor can it be con- 

 nected with one of the vernaculars which subsequently came into 

 use. berapion, however, who most probably knew another version 



Low, Aram. Pflanzennarn 

 Low, l.c. p. 2* sin 

 t Ebn Baithar, 1 c. 



p. lS5° WafilC ' Lib6r Fundament °rum, Ed. Seligmann, p. 35 ; ed. Achundow, 



Moeun H^ r uli S T itafc f S ' **• gentt, 1485, cap. xliii ; ed. Jac. Meydenbach, 



¥KSw„v J» P - Xlv I **• Matfchaei Silvatici, 1511, cap. xlv. 

 1, Matthioh, Comment. Dioscor., ed. 1565, p. 803. 



