238 
Honan, Shensi, Shansi and Shantung, especially in the last-named, 
where they used to dry them and send them off to the other 
provinces of the Empire. When dried this fruit resembles some- 
what our figs, but it is superior in flavour.” 
Bretschneider remarks: “This is without doubt the Dzospyros 
Kaki, Linn. f. (D. Schitze, Bunge), a very common fruit tree all 
over China, where a great many varieties of it are cultivated. The 
Chinese name of the fruit is schitze ; in the Amoy dialect sutsu.” 
Passing over a number of writers who mention this fruit, but 
whose works we have not seen, we come to Boym (1656), whose 
Flora Sinensis is the earliest illustrated book on the natural history 
‘of China that Kew possesses, and probably the earliest extant. It 
is a thin quarto, printed in Latin at Vienna, and containing twenty- 
three plates illustrative of the flora or rather of the pomona, for 
they nearly all represent cultivated, edible fruits, several of which 
are not natives of China. e plates and letterpress are designated 
by the alphabet, from A onwards. Diospyros Kaki is rudely, 
though unmistakably represented by plate M, which is explained in 
the following terms: “ Sat, Fructus Sinicus. Arbor et fructus 
supim apud Sinas tantum nascitur, est et aurei et purpurei coloris, 
magnus pomum excedit, carnem mollem et rubeam cum simili 
pellicula refert ; ossicula hic inde interius abscondit ; cum siccatur 
ficubus Europaeis simillimus est, et per multos annos conservatus, a 
Sinis Medicis saepenumero in pharmacis adhibetur. [gregius 
profecto fructus, in Quamtum, et Junkim regionibus J anuario, 
Februario et Martio, sed in Xensy et Honan aliisque septentrion- 
alibus Junio et Julio et Augusto maturescit. Arbor onerata 
purpureis hisce pomis, gratissimum exhibet aspectum, quae ne ab 
avibus decerpantur, continuis vigiliis custodiuntur.” 
The earliest record of the Kaki in English literature is probably 
that by Camellus (Kamel) in Ray’s Historia Plantarum, Appendix, 
1704, p. 54, where it is described under the name of Zapotl de 
China. This Appendix is entitled: Herbarum Aliarumque Stirpium 
in Insula Luzone Philippinarum Primaria Nascentium Syllabus, 
and the Kaki is placed under the head: “ Arbores Pomiferae 
quarum Flos imo Fructui cohaeret. |The author gives the Chinese 
name as Xicu; the Spanish as Chicoy, and the Portuguese, as 
Figocague. Evidently the Kaki was cultivated in the Philippines 
at that date, and it is still. The writer alludes to several varieties. 
Bretschneider states that more than ninety drawings of the plants 
sent by Kamel were published by Petiver in his Gazophylacitum 
Naturae et Artis, and a leaf, fruit and seed of the Kaki are 
represented in plate 45, under the name of Zapotl, with a reference 
to the Sylloge of Camellus, ~ 
_In 1781 Linnaeus the younger’s description appeared under the 
binomen Diospyros Kaki, and passing over a number of references 
given in the bibliography at the end, we come to the introduction 
and cultivation of the Kaki in England, which was effected through 
the agency of Sir Joseph Banks, in 1789. 
The following agai account of the Kaki is extracted from 
Sargent's “ Forest: Flora of Japan.”.. -..) «-. <4 9.3 | £403 
