4 
EARLY EUROPEAN RESEARCHES 
in Peking between 1740 and 1757, appears to have been the 
first who collected plants and seeds for his instructor Bernh. 
de Jussieu, as will be shown in a subsequent chapter. 
The scope of this paper is not intended to give a full account 
of all that has been written bj the Jesuits in China on botanical 
matters. That would unduly swell the limits of this chapter, 
I shall draw up merely a list of their works or scattered minor 
articles dealing with the vegetable productions of the Middle 
Kingdom, selecting only a few memoirs, presenting a particular 
interest for a more detailed review, reproducing occasionally the 
text in the original. 
But before proceeding to a chronological survey of these 
publications of the ancient Jesuit fathers, one of the earliest 
works on China, published before their advent, deserves to be 
noticed here. #, 
J. GOBTZiLEBZ de MSNBOZA’s 12SSTOB.1T 
OF THE GREAT AIBMIGHTY E11GBOM 
OF'CBINA was first printed in Spanish, in 1585,in Rome. 
An English version of the book (to which I refer) was published 
in 1853 by the Hakluyt Soc. Mendoza, an Augustin monk, 
had himself never seen China. The material for his book has 
been derived from the reports of some friars of the same order, 
who had found opportunity to visit China. He depends mainly 
upon the accounts furnished by the monk Martin de Herrada f 
who had been taken, in 1575, by a Spanish ship from Manilla 
to the Chinese port of Tsuan choufu (prov. of Eu kien) where 
he was allowed to spend three months. The information given 
in this little book with respect to the vegetable productions 
of China (I, 14. 15. 82.) are very meagre but not devoid of 
interest. The excellence of the Chinese Chestnuts is there 
praised and there is noticed also the great abundance of large 
Melons. We are further told that “ the Chinese have a kind of 
Plum , that they call leechias, of an excellent gallant taste.’* 
This is, I think, the first mention made by Europeans of Lichis 
(Weplielium laitchi Camb.). We are further more informed 
in the same work that the Chinese, besides Wheat, Barley, Millet 
(panizo), cultivate also the same Maize, which constitutes the 
principal food of the Indians in Mexico. This latter statement 
made at so early a date has a peculiar interest for us, for it is 
now a well established fact that Maize is not indigenous to 
China but has been introduced since the discovery of America. 
One of the earliest accounts given of the Chinese Empire by 
Jesuit missionaries is that by ALV. S1EMEDO. He was 
of Portuguese origin, born 1585, arrived in China in 1613, 
