30 EARLY EUROPEAN RESEARCHES 
This is the Sophora japoniea. L., a very common tree all over China, sin s 
^ huai shu. 
E. next translates from a Chinese book some notes with 
respect to Willows , explaining the use of willow wool instead 
of cotton. 
The author means Salix babylonica. L., also a very common tree in 
China. This reminds me of a statement of Professor Bunge, who, in 
his Enum. plant. Chinae bor., writes that the female tree of S. babylonica 
is very rare at Peking. This is an error. The female tree is met here 
much more frequently than the male and in May or June, when the 
willow seeds ripen, the air in the neighborhood of some places, where the 
trees abound, is full of this white wool (cottony down, which envelopes 
the seeds.) and d’Entrecolles reports the same. If I am not mistaken, in 
Europe the female tree only of S. babylonica is known. At Peking both 
male and female are met with. 
In tbe same letter (l.c. 721) E. recommends, on the authority 
of Chinese authors, the roots of the Belvedere, sao tcheou ts ao, 
termed Jciue in Chinese books, as substitute for food in times 
of famine. 
The author commits an error. What the French call Belvedere is 
Kochia scoparia. Schrad., a salsolaceous plant in North China as common 
as in Europe. The Pen tsao kang mu, XYI. 44. calls it vjP ti fu 
tsz’ or fH Jjl sao chon ts'ao (meaning broom plant.) But the m 
Me (Pen tsao XXVII. 25.) is not the same, this name being applied to a 
Fern, Pteris aquilina. L., the farinaceous rhizoms of which are used in 
China as food as is also the case in some parts of Europe. 
Finally (l.c. 722) E. gives an account of the Chinese 
Camphor tree and the method used by the Chinese to obtain 
Camphor from it. 
BOMINICUS FAEENNIN, a Frenchman, born 
1665, came to China 1698, + in Peking, 1741. 
In 1723 Parennin sent a few Chinese drugs to the Academy 
of Sciences in Paris, furnishing some explanatory remarks on 
them in an accompanying letter, (l.c. Ill 341.) 
The first of these drugs he calls hia tsao turn ehom, meaning 
as he explains: a plant in summer, and in winter an insect. 
It is produced in Tibet and also in the province of Sz’ ch'uan, 
and considered among the Chinese a very powerful medicine. 
The Father had himself experienced the medical virtues of 
this drug. 
It is known now, that the drug in question is a Fungus, Cordyceps 
sinensis, which grows upon the head of a caterpillar. 
The plant next described, the san tsi, is said to grow in the 
mountains of the provinces of Yfin nan, Kui chon and Sz’ 
ch'uan. This is still unknown to botanists. The plant 
san ts i is treated of in the Pen ts'ao XII b, 41. The name 
