VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 43 



for Shui-ch'in may indicate that under some conditions or in 

 some places the Ch'in may be considered to be deleterious, as 

 ^ is usually referred to the Solanacese. At any rate, the red 

 varieties of celery offered for sale by the Chinese ought to be 

 eaten with great caution. There is the greatest difficulty in 

 harmonising the statements of the Phitsao in regard to the use 

 of the above characters. After the Shui-ch'in, which is also 

 called ^ If (K'u-ch'in), the plant g (chin) is treated of, and 

 ^. "^ (Han-ch'in) given as a synonym. But in the Erh-ya 

 and classics, as well as in Japan, this cliaracter refers to a Viola^ 

 and judging by the uses to which it is recommended in the 

 Phitsao^ this is its proper classification. (See Viola. ) 



Celery is a common vegetable with the Chinese. They 

 sometimes eat it raw, but they usually take it about half cooked, 

 which certainly would be a hygienic safeguard, when we 

 consider their manner of using fertilizers in gardening. Its 

 properties are considered to be digestive, cooling, quieting, 

 alterative, and tonic. It is recommended in menstrual !■ :xes 

 and in digestive troubles of children. The expressed juice of 

 the bleached stalk is the form much used medicinally. 



APLOTAXIS AURICULATA. ^ 7fc # (Kuang-mu- 

 hsiang), 860. This is identical with Aplotaxis lappa and 

 Aucklandia costus. It is sometimes carelessly written /fc ^ 

 (Mu-hsiang), as is also Aristolochia., but the true viu-hsiaiig is 

 Rosa banksia (which see). Enormous quantities of this root 

 are collected in the highlands of Cashmere, whence it is 

 conveyed to Calcutta and Bombay, from where it is shipped to 

 China. As it probably originally entered at the port of Canton, 

 it was given the name it now bears. It is said that there is a 

 root produced in Kansuh and Honan called Kuang-hsiang, 

 which may be this same drug. Other parts of India and 

 Syria also produce this drug, which in Sanscrit is called kiishta^ 

 in Arabic and Persian knst and in Bengal patchak. This last 

 name is imitated in Cantonese. The drug is met with in dry, 

 brown, broken pieces, having much the same appearance as so 

 many old broken pieces of bone. The smell is very fragrant, 

 resembling that of orris root, and the taste bitter, pungent, 

 aromatic, and slightly mucilaginous. It is used in making 



