Kruorr.AX AND AMKKICAN LITKUATI:UK 25 



In 1656 Michel Hoym's work ' was made known and published 

 later in Melchisedech Thevenot's Li da lions de divers voayycs. 

 Boym devoted a paragraph to the Li-ci and Luni-ycn and said that 

 the trees appear only in the southern provinces of China; that the 

 fruit of the li-ci somewhat resembles that of the pine and that the 

 him yen has a very thin skin; that the texture is somewhat like that 

 of the grape and is dried in large quantities by the Chinese. He re- 

 ported how the Chinese claim that when the fruit is wild it has very 

 large seed, scanty flesh and sub-acid taste, but if it is transplanted and 

 cultivated the seeds soon decrease in size and the flesh becomes 

 sweet and abundant. He likened the color of the flesh to human 

 nails and says that the Chinese sometimes preserve die fruit in salt 

 water and thus are able to maintain its freshness. His drawing of the 

 tree and fruit, carefully labeled with Chinese characters, was probably 

 the first figure of the tree published in the West. Giacomo Zanonii 

 ( 1615-1682) 2 also pictured the lychee, showing limb, leaves, fruit 

 and flower. His work not published until 1742. Jt describes the 

 lychee as a tree of large, thick, oblong leaves; the white flowers occur 



together; fruit very red with thin skin and white flesh. He 



says that the kernels of the fruits are sometimes used with flour f6r 

 making bread and that the poorer ones are made into powder to 

 produce a cooling drink. The pre-Linnean name Lischion Indiac 

 oricntalis was given by Zanonii. In 1662 Johannes Jonstonus's 

 work 5 appeared in Latin. His observations were so similar to those 

 of Boym as to make one feel that the latter was the source of the 

 information. He also devoted a whole plate to a drawing of the tree 

 and fruit which he, too, carefully labeled with Chinese characters. 



Dr. Olfert Dapper 4 , Dutch traveller in his work published in 

 Amsterdam in 1670, reports that in Chungkingfu, Szechwan, the 

 lychee grows everywhere in great abundance; and that in south-west 



1 Boym, Michel, in Thevenot, Melchisedech, Relations i/e i/i-rer* 

 voaygfs. Paris, A. Pralard, 1683, page 2(1. 



- Zanonii Giacomo, Jacobi Zanonii Rariorum stirpium hisloria ex parte 

 olim edita Bononiae, ex typographia Laelii a Vulpe, 1742, page 147. 



* Jonstonus, Johannes, Dendrographias : sive, Historiae naturalis tie 



arboribus Francofurti ad Moenum, sumptibus haeredum Matthaei 



Meriani, 1662, page 475 and Tab. cxxxvi. 



4 Dapper, Olfert, Gedenkwaerdigbedryt der Nederlandsche Oost-Indische 



maetschappye, op de kuste en in het keizerrijk van Taising of Sina: 



Jacob van Mcurs, Amsterdam, 1670, pages 208 and 209. 



