237 
Kastern India. Assam: Khasia Hills, in various localities; 
Nunklow, 1668 ; Mooshye, 2363; Panee, without number, Hooker 
and Thomson ; without locality, G. Mann, 186. Naga Hills, C. B. 
Clarke, 41150A. 
Western China. Yunnan: Szemao, A. Henry, 9341, 11618A, 
11618C, 11618D. Hupeh: Ichang and immediate neighbourhood, 
A, Henry, 1502. 
Cultivated in Europe. H. Par. (Hortus Parisiensis), 1875 ; 
received through Prof. Dyer, viii, 1875; named Diospyros Kaki. 
i Baten Carr., Herb. Mus. Par. Antibes (Alpes Maritimes) 
sub dio cult., 1871; "named D. Kaki, Thunb., Herb. G. Thuret., 
comm. ee 1871. "All the specimens cited are in the Kew 
Herbari 
One of a specimens from Antibes is in fruit ; the rest of these 
cultivated specimens are barren shoots in a quite young condition. 
With the specimen named D. Kaki, H. Par. 1875, are male and 
female flowers in envelopes, labelled respectively : Diospyros Kaki, 
Q, Hort. Thuret, and Diospyros Kaki, 3, ért, Thuret. The 
envelopes are inscribed as having been received at the same date as 
the leafy shoot on the same sheet ; but they are certainly neither 
ae of D. Kaki nor those of D. Roxburghii, Possibly they belong 
0 D. Lotus, which was among the species cultivated in France at 
m a 
D. Kaki, which I take to be D. Lotus Linn. It is labelled: 
Antibes, sub dio cult. 27 Mai, 1870, 
Carriére states (Revue Horticole 1874, p. 71, under D, Mazelii) 
that his D. Rorburghii is not so hardy a tree as D. Kaki. 
Eariy History oF THE KAKI. 
Although, on the authority of Bretschneider, the Kaki is cultivated 
all over China, it does not figure among the vegetable products of 
China mentioned by Marco Polo, the pioneer of Kuropean travellers 
in that country, who resided there for a number of years towards 
the end of the thirteenth century. About the middle of the six- 
teenth century the first Jesuit missionaries landed in China, and it 
is to successive members of this order that we are indebted for our 
earliest knowledge of the Kaki. Bretschneider gives extracts from 
their writings, accompanied by comments in relation to his identi- 
fications. Ricci is the earliest (1615) cited, and he refers to a 
peculiar very common fruit which the Portuguese used to call 
Chinese Figs. Alvarus de Semedo (1643) has the idliwes pane’, 
as translated from the French by Bretschneider :—* Ther 
kind of fruit Site everywhere in China which they call su zu in 
ig. 
