ON THE GROWTH OF RHUBARB IN CHINA. 393 
seven feet, is crisp and sour, and may be chewed raw. The leaf is coarse, 
long, and thick ; the root is red, and resembles that of the Yang-ti plant ; 
its shape is like a basin, and is about two feet long ; its nature is soft 
and moist, and it is easily destroyed by the woodworm. That which is 
dried by means of artificial heat is best. It is dried thus : — A stone is 
heated, and on it are placed the roots cut in horizontal slices about an 
inch thiek. Being thus heated for a day, they become a little dry. A 
hole is then made in each piece, through which they are strung together 
like cash.* The root thus cut and partially dried is then hung up in 
the shade till it becomes perfectly dry and fit for the market. The 
rhubarb which grows in Shen-si, Kan-sub, and in the west of Si-chwan,is 
all of good quality. That which grows in Shen-si, Chil-li, and other 
places to the north of these, is smaller in size, and not equal to that of 
Si-chwan in point of strength. What Tau-hung-king says about the Si- 
chwan rhubarb being inferior to that of Lung-si is a mistake. 
5. Su-sung says, that rhubarb grows everywhere in Si-chwan, east of 
the Yellow river, and in Shen-si. The Si-chwan rhubarb is fine-grained. 
Next comes that of Shen-si. The plant of the latter produces green 
leaves in the first month, which resemble those of the Pima (Ricinus 
communis, Linn.), and are as large as a fan. The root resembles a 
Chinese potatoe,f the largest being the size of a basin, and from one to 
two feet long. In the fourth month a yellow flWer opens ; in the 
second and eighth months the root is extracted, and the black skin which 
covers it being taken off, it is cut in horizontal slices, and dried by means 
of artificial heat. The Si-chwan rhubarb is cut perpendicularly, which 
makes the slices resemble the tongue of an ox, and, hence it is called the 
ox-tongue rhubarb % The use and value of these two kinds of rhubarb 
is the same. Hwai-ngan-fu, in the province of Kiang-su, produces what 
is called Tu-ta-kwang, local rhubarb.§ The flower opens in the second 
month. 
Sung-ki, who prepared some diagrams illustrative of the productions 
of Yih-chau, in Si-chwan, says that the rhubarb plant grows everywhere 
among the high mountains of Si-chwan. Its stalk is red ; the leaf is 
large, and the root so large that it is used for a pillow in the medicine 
markets. He also states that the Lung-si rhubarb, in Shen-si, was con- 
sidered best in his time. He lived in the Sung dynasty, between 1000 
A.D, and 1270 a.d. 
* Cash is a Chinese name for Chinese copper coins, called tung-tseen, with a 
square hole in the centre. — L. 
*T The Chinese potato is the Dioscorea Batatas, or White Yam, a long cylin- 
drical root which has been recently introduced into England. — L. 
% I believe what is intended is a thin diagonal slice, eommon in the shops, 
and which I used to buy. It might, by a lively imagination, be likened to an 
ox tongue. The others are transverse slices. — L. 
§ The best rhubarb is Sz-chuen. The others, and especially that of Kiang-su, 
are called local, which implies inferiority. — L. 
