142 WILSON EXPEDITION TO CHINA 



Szech'uan: Sui Fu (Siichow Fu), cultivated, December 

 (No. 4739, " closed Buddha's hand ") ; same locality, December 

 1908 (No. 4740, "open Buddha's hand"). Yunnan: Mengtze, 

 Pan-ya-huan, March 21, A. Henry (No. 10445*; shrub 1 m. tall, 

 flowers dark pink on outside ; photograph and fragments of a specimen 

 from the National Herbarium, Washington, D. C). 



The varietal names cheirocarpa and digitata are often credited to Loureiro {Fl. 

 Cochin. I. 465) but he used them merely incidentally in translating a native name 

 and not as specific or varietal names; they consequently have no standing in 

 nomenclature. 



The fingered citron, or Buddha's hand is, according to Mr. Wilson's notes, cul- 

 tivated on a small scale in Szech'uan. The fruits are valued because of their 

 delicious odor and are also used in medicine. They are well known all over China 

 and Japan. Two forms, the one open the other closed, very similar if not iden- 

 tical with those collected by Mr. Wilson are figured by Bonavia under the name 

 Chhangura (six fingers). Possibly this variety originated in India and was carried 

 to China by the Buddhist monks. At any rate it seems to have been unknown 

 to the ancient Chinese, as Bretschneider states {Study and value of Chinese botanical 

 works, in Chinese Recorder, III. 178 [1870]) that it is not mentioned in Ki Han, 

 Nan-fang-t'sao-mu-chuang (or Flora of the Southern Regions), the earliest Chinese 

 work of a purely botanical character published about 300 A. D., although the Hsiang 

 ytian or common citron is described. 



Henry's specimen (No. 10445^) shows that the ovary even before the flower 

 opens is broken up into fingers much as is the mature fruit. 



Citrus nobilis Loureiro, Fl. Cochin. I. 266 (1790). — Hume in Bull. 

 Florida Agric. Exp. Sta. LXVI. 582, t. 1 (1903) ; Taylor in Yearb. 

 U. S. Dept. Agric. 1907, 311-313, t. 34 (1908). 



Western Szech'uan: Lu Chou, December 1908 (No. 4734, 

 fruit in spirits). 



This orange, which is depressed globose in shape and has a rough skin, is culti- 

 vated in the same regions as the Mandarin orange but not to the same extent. 

 The rind (Chi en-pi) and pithy fibre (Chu-lo) surrounding the carpels are used in 

 Chinese medicine according to Mr. Wilson's notes. 



A careful study of Loureiro's descriptions of the species of Citrus found by him 

 during nearly half a century of residence in south-eastern Asia convinces me that 

 his Citrus nobilis must be the orange known in Florida and California as the ''King," 

 which was imported into this country from Saigon, Cochinchina, in 1880. No 

 other known form of the so-called Mandarin group of oranges agrees even re- 

 motely with Loureiro's description. Even Loureiro's statement that the peel is 

 edible, " cortice crasso, succoso, dulci, eduli, tuberculoso-inaequali," so impossi- 



figure in Atlas under leafy trees (Kuan mu), cited from 1655 ed. — T'u shu tsi 

 ch'eng, 1728 (see Bretschneider, 1. c, 71), Sect. 4. Science, Div. 20, Botany (Ts'ao 

 mu), Bk. 286, 1 pi., 10 pp., cited from large reprint. — Sasaki in Jour. Soc. Hort. 

 Jap. No. 151, December, p. 1-15, fig. 1-10 (1 plate) (1904). 



" Chh&,ngura " or " Chdngurd," Bonavia, Cult. Orang. Lemons India, 66-71 

 Atlas, t. 139, 140 (1888). 



