94 THE LYCHEE AND LUNGAN 



From him the headship of the Church was transmitted through a 

 succession of patriarchs and ended at the close of the seventh century 

 in the death of Luk-tso. l Luk-tso's real name was Lu Hwei-neng 

 and his native village was Lo-ts'uen, near the present city of Sin 

 Hsing (San hing Dfffl), in Kwangtung. He was born there in 625 

 A. D. l It is interesting to note that the origin of this variety has at 

 least an indirect connection with the life of this famous tCwatigtung 

 Buddhist. 



The trees of this variety are of a somewhat different appearance 

 from those of other varieties. The tree is more upright in habit and 

 thfc leaves, which are small and pointed, tend to grow upward. The 

 fruits are small deep red in. color, very rough nnd with many 

 prickles, like the Kuei wei (fl&fc) (rig 46). The flavor is very- 

 fragrant and delicious and is satd to be even better than that of the 

 Kuei wei (t|i). The seeds of good types of this variety are smaller 

 than those or any oth^r variety. The Chinese say they are so small 

 that one cannot eat sufficient fruit of this variety to fill a wine glass 

 with the seeds. 



The fruit appears on the markets rather late. Districts other 

 than Sin hsing (San hing $r^) are said to have attempted to place 

 this variety on the markets, but these are inferior as the character of 

 the fruit quickly changes when grown in other localities. This fact 

 has resulted in the production of other varieties that are somewhat 

 similar to the Hsiang li '&'%,). One of these, a very small fruit a 

 little longer in form than the Hsiang li f^jft), is a variety known as 

 Lung ya li (Lung nga lai ffit3r3) or " Dragon tooth lychee." 



Hsi chio tsa (Sai kok Isz ffift=f-} Rkinoccrus .hum 



This variety also had its origin is Tseng ch'ing (Tsang shing 

 One immense tree, which is said to be one of the original trees, 

 is still growing at Liao ts'un (Liu ts'un gtft) and is shown in figures 

 47-48. In this district the fame of this variety is next to that of the 

 Kualu 



The fruit is large, fragrant and sweet and the rlesh is some- 

 what fibrous and tough. It is a very early variety, in this respect 

 ranking ahead of Ta tsao (Tai tso ^;ia) which follows it. The 

 trees are said to grow larger than those of Ta tsao (^Cin), and are not 



1 Henry, B.C., Ling-Nam or Interior Views of Southern Cirnu, S.\V. 

 Partridge and Co., London, 1886, page 224. 



