CHAPTER X 

 THE LITCHI AND ITS RELATIVES 



THE Sapindaceae or Soapberry family comprises a number of 

 fruits prized in the tropics, which may be brought together 

 in one chapter. In temperate climates the family yields no 

 important edible fruits. Some botanists place the maples and 

 buckeyes in this family, but these plants are now commonly 

 separated in other closely related families. 



THE LITCHI (Plate XVII, Fig. 42) 

 (Litchi chinensis, Sonn.) 



While living in exile at Canton, the poet Su Tung-po declared 

 that litchis would reconcile one to eternal banishment. Yet 

 he did not allow his enthusiasm to draw him into gastronomic 

 indiscretions, for he limited himself to a modest three hundred 

 a day, while other men (so he says) did not stop short of a 

 thousand. 



Chang Chow-ling, an illustrious statesman of the eighth 

 century of our era, composed a poem on the litchi in which he 

 praised it as the most luscious of all fruits. Modern Chinese 

 critics fully concur in this opinion. Neither the orange nor the 

 peach, two of the finest fruits of southern China, is held to 

 equal it in quality. 



Nor is the litchi one of those rare and delicate fruits known 

 only to the favored few. In southern Asia, where its cultivation 

 dates back at least two thousand years, it is grown extensively 

 and millions are familiar with it. That it should still be un- 



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