70 NOTES ON THE AGRICULTURE, BOTANY 



Besides the cereal plants and kitchen-garden vegetables they 

 use as food many wild plants, which replace the cultivated 

 vegetables. In this custom is recognised the adaptedness of 

 the population to the local conditions, where often un- 

 expected floods inundate the fields and vegetable gardens or 

 where the aborigines, — local hunters, — have not sufficient 

 time to cultivate vegetables, and not every spring in villages 

 we can find fresh greens preserved from the autumn. Here 

 early in spring and summer the people replace the cultivated 

 vegetables by young fern leaves, stalks of Galtha palustris, 

 stems of the white flowered peony, Chenop odium album, wild 

 sorrel, young stalks of worm- wood, spring leaves of dande- 

 lion, leaves of the sow-thistle and many other kinds of plants, 

 are used as food. 



The population in the river valleys, living among mar- 

 shes, eat the young shoots of the reed-mace, the true-reed, 

 the rhizome of Sagittaria and the leaves of Limnanthemum . 

 Among all the known wild Manchurian vegetables the most 

 nourishing are the bulbs of the different kinds of lilies, the 

 wild garlic, the "Charemsha," the roots and the flowers of a 

 yellow lily (Hemerocallis), the bulbs of Fritillaria. Of the 

 above the dried flowers of the yellow lily, the bulbs of several 

 kinds of lilies and of "Charemsha" have a local trade import- 

 ance. The use by natives of wild vegetables is very common 

 and important in this district, not less than in China, and 

 some of them are valuable and can be recommended for 

 cultivation. Particularly worthy of attention, on account of 

 their edible quality are different forms of umbellar and 

 bulbous plants. The number of the wild vegetables em- 

 ployed in Manchuria is very large and this list is not com- 

 plete. They are as follows : 



1. — Fern. (Aspidium Felix m.as L.) Rich. It is grown 

 in all the districts. The Chinese and the natives use the 

 young spring leaves of this fern as food. They are very 

 soft and delicate in taste. 



2. — Charemsha (Allium Victorialis L.) It is found in 

 woods, and is eaten by the Eussians and natives in Man- 

 churia and the Eussian Maritime provinces. 



3. — Wild garlic (Allium Schoenoprasum L.) A kind of 

 garlic, which is eaten by natives and by the Chinese. 



4. — Yellow-lily (Hemerocallis Middendorfii Jr. et Mey.) 

 It is a very common plant in all parts of the district on 

 meadows and mountain sides. The flowers of these plants 

 are used by Chinese as food. The'y have an original, pleasant 

 savour and are nourishing for they contain starch. The 

 flowers are mostly dried and sent to the local market. The 

 rhizome is also eaten. 



