The (c. 304 CE) Nanfang caomu zhuang (南方草木狀 Plants of the Southern Regions), attributed to the Western Jin dynasty scholar and botanist Ji Han (嵇含, 263-307), is a Flora describing the plants of Nanyue and Jiaozhi, present-day South China and northern Vietnam. The Nanfang caomu zhuang is the oldest work extant in any language on subtropical botany. The book contains the first descriptions of several economic plants, for instance jasmine and black pepper, as well as the earliest accounts of some agricultural techniques such as biological pest control (using "citrus ants" to protect orange crops), and the cultivation of vegetables on floating gardens (centuries before the earliest recorded Mesoamerican chinampa).
Since 1273, when the Nanfang caomu zhuang was first printed in the Song dynasty, it was frequently quoted by Chinese authors, both in literature and technical books on horticulture, agriculture, and Chinese herbology. Since the 19th century (e.g., Hirth and Bretschneider, many Western sinologists, botanists, and historians of plant cultivation have studied it.
Ji Han The Nanfang caomu zhuang author Ji Han was "one of the greatest of all Chinese botanists".
The primary source of information about Ji Han's life is the Book of Jin biography of his uncle Ji Shao, who was the son of the poet-musician Ji Kang (223–262), one of the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove. Ji Han was born in 263 in Zhixian (銍縣, in present-day Anhui province). His courtesy name was Jun Dao (君道; "Gentleman's Way"), and his pen name Boqiuzi (亳丘子 "Master of Boqiu") refers to his residence at Boqiu (present-day Henan) near the capital Luoyang. He served as a scholar-administrator and poet on the staff of several princes.
In 300, during the War of the Eight Princes, Ji Han was a military commander under the future Emperor Huai of Jin (r. 307-313), whose army suffered a defeat at Dangyin (蕩陰), in which his uncle Ji Shao was killed protecting the emperor. Ji Han was made prefect of Xiangcheng in 304, but when it was conquered, he had to escape south to Xiangyang (present-day Hebei), and at the recommendation of the official Liu Hong, he was appointed governor of Guangdong in 306. However, before he could leave, Ji Han was assassinated at Xiangyang in 307 after Liu Hong's death. When Ji Han was made Governor, he appointed his friend Ge Hong, the alchemist and author of the Shenxian zhuan and Baopuzi, as aide-de-camp. Ge Hong went to Guangdong ahead of Ji, and remained there afterwards for several years, probably because he was interested in the exotic plants and unusual mineral substances of the south.
In addition to writing the Nanfang caomu zhuang, the "first botanical treatise of all time", Ji Han was a prolific poet, particularly fu "rhapsody; poetic exposition", and deeply interested in botany. While most of his ten-volume collected works were lost, later texts quote the prefaces to Ji's poetical fu essays on the daylily, hibiscus, Platycarya tree, evergreen tree, and sweet melon. Ji Han also wrote a fu on the fashionable "Cold-Food Powder" mixture of mineral and plant drugs, which says "it cured his ailing son when other treatments had failed".
Title The title uses three common Chinese words. Nánfāng (南方, lit. "south direction/region") "south; southern part of a country" Cǎomù (草木, lit. grass/herb [and] tree") "vegetation; plants (in general)" Zhuàng (狀) "form, shape; state, condition; account, record; description, narrative"
The title Nanfang caomu zhuang does not have a standard English translation. For instance, the Science and Civilisation in China series of books, edited by Joseph Needham and his international collaborators, gives six variant versions. "Plants and Trees of the Southern Regions" "Records of the Plants and Trees of the Southern Regions" "Prospect of the Plants and Trees of the Southern Regions" "Appearances of Plants and Trees in the Southern Regions" "Herbs and Trees of the South" "Flora of the South"
Content
The Nanfang caomu zhuang text is divided into three chapters, with a total of 80 botanical entries. The first (cǎolèi 草類 "Herbs", 1-29) consists of 29 herbs and plants, the second (mùlèi 木類 "Trees", 30-57) 28 forest trees, and the third consists of (guǒlèi 果類 "Fruits", 58-74) 17 fruit trees, and (zhúlèi 竹類 "Bamboos", 75-80) 6 bamboos.
The Preface explains Ji Han's motive in writing the book. The plants of Nan-yueh and Chiao-chih are the most interesting of the four borderlands. They were not known before the Chou and Ch'in dynasties. Since the expansion territories undertaken by Wu Ti of Han, the rare and precious kinds were sought and brought in and the best were used as tributes. As people of the central regions are often unfamiliar with their nature, I hereby record and describe these from what I have heard for the benefit of future generations.Tr. . The ancient kingdom of Nanyue ("southern Yue") was located in parts of the present-day Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan; Jiaozhi was in northern Vietnam. The pre-Han dynasties were the Zhou (c. 1046–256 BCE) and Qin (221–206 BCE). Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BCE) led the Southward expansion of the Han dynasty.
Among six proposed categories of Chinese authors who wrote botanical books, Ji Han and the exotic botanical Nanfang caomu zhuiang exemplify the first, "scholar-officials, physicians and others whose duties took them to those places within or on the borders of the empire where special plants flourished".
Genre The Nanfang caomu zhuang is considered the type-specimen for the "strange plants of the south" genre of Chinese botanical writings. Within the traditional Sinocentric world-view, China's "south" (nan 南) referred to the seaward-facing regions of present-day Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan provinces, all subtropical or tropical in climate are distinctly separate from the rest of China, which is borne out by their affiliation to a different floristic region. The Nan Mountains or Wuling (五岭 "five mountain ranges") geographically and climatically separate Northern and Southern China, and Lingnan ("south of the mountain ranges") is another name for the subtropical area that Ji Han called Nanyue and Jiaozhi.
The first book in the "strange plants of the south" genre was the (early 3rd century) Yiwu zhi ("Record of Strange/Foreign Things"), by the Eastern Han official Yang Fu. It is also known as the Nanyi yiwu zhi (南裔異物志, "Record of Strange Things of the Southern Borders").
The (c. 3rd century) Nanzhou yiwu zhi (南洲異物志, "Record of Strange Things of the Southern Continent") or Nanfang yiwu zhi (南方異物志, "Record of Strange Things of the South") was written by Wan Zhen (萬震), and may have been one of Ji Han's sources for his book.
Ji Han's Nanfang caomu zhi ("Record of Southern Plants and Trees") title is sometimes confused with the (c. 3rd-4th century) Nanfang caowu zhi (南方草物狀, "Record of Southern Plants and Products"), which was written by a less well-known person, whose name is written Xu Zhong (徐衷) or Xu Biao (徐表). In order to explain the confusion of these caomu ("plants and trees") and caowu ("plants and products") titles, Needham, Lu, and Huang compare this almost-identically named parallel work with noise in communication systems. For instance, an early Chinese book on agriculture, Jia Sixie's (賈思勰, c. 540) Qimin Yaoshu was fond of quoting the Nanfang caowu zhi, as were others later, often giving Nanfang caomu zhi as the title. But since none of the Xu Zhong quotations can be found in the work of Ji Han as it has come down to us, some scholars supposed the two books to have been one and the same. Modern scholarship has shown that the two books were quite distinct. In contrast to Ji Han's "refinement", Xu Zhong's style is "plain and rather repetitive". There are five cases of the same plant being described by both authors, and then the entries are generally quite different; but the Nanfang caowu zhi was never a flora, for it included marine animals and all kinds of natural products.
The (early 19th century) Xu nanfang caomu zhi (續南方草木狀 "Supplement to the Record of Southern Plants and Trees"), written by Jiang Fan (江藩), is an independent study rather than a supplement to Ji Han's book. It contains brief notes on 42 plants in Guangdong.
Sample entries
The best way to elucidate the Nanfang caomu zhuang text is to provide some noteworthy entries for bananas, Chinese spinach, oranges, and "herb ferment".
Banana The Gānjiāo (甘蕉, lit. "sweet banana/plantain") "banana, Musa paradisiaca, Musa sapientum" entry distinguishes two kinds of dessert-banana plants and one fiber-banana plant. The Kan-chiao, seen from afar, resembles a tree. The larger plants are over one armspan in circumference. The leaves are ten feet long, or sometimes seven to eight feet and over one to almost two feet broad. The flowers are as big as a wine cup, with the shape and color of a lotus. Over one hundred pods are attached together at the end of the stem, called a fang (房, spathe). They are sweet and palatable and can also be preserved in honey. The roots resemble taro, the largest as big as a carriage wheel. Fruiting follows flowering, and the flowers, which have a cluster of six pods each, develop successively. The pods are not formed simultaneously and the flowers do not drop at the same time. It is also called Pa-chiao 芭蕉 or Pa-chü 巴苴. Removing the peel of the pod, the yellowish-white interior with a taste like the grape appears, sweet and soft. It satisfies hunger also. There are three kinds. The kind with pods the size of a thumb, long and pointed, resembling a sheep's horn in shape, is called Yang-chiao-chiao 羊角蕉 (sheep's horn banana), and is the sweetest and most delicious in taste. Another kind with pods the size of a hen's egg and resembling a cow's udder is called Niu-ju-chiao 牛乳蕉 (cow's udder banana), and is slightly inferior to Yang-chiao-chiao. A third kind is the size of a lotus rootstock; the pods are six to seven inches in length, squarish in shape, not sweet, and considered the most inferior. The stem is separable into fibers, and when treated with lime, can be woven into thin cloth, called Chiao-ko 蕉葛 (banana linen). Although the cloth is soft and good and yellowish-white in color, it is not comparable to the reddish linen. The plant grows in both Chiao and Kuang. According to the San-fu huang-t'u 三輔黃圖, "Wu Ti of Han, in the sixth year of the Yüan-ting period (111 B.C.), conquered Nan-yüeh and built the Fu-Ii Palace to plant the rare plants and strange trees obtained. There are two plants Kan-chiao." (1)Tr. . This detailed description is of great interest for botanists, but closer observation would have shown that the six fruits in a half-spiral did not come from one ovary. Since banana plants are all sterile hybrid cultigens, species differentiation is problematic. Musa × paradisiaca includes the previously differentiated M. paradisiaca "cooking/fiber banana; plantain" and M. sapientum " dessert banana". Judging from the Nanfang caomu zhuang account, the two yángjiǎojiāo (羊角蕉 "ram's horn banana") and niúrǔjiāo (牛乳蕉 "cow's milk banana") were of the edible sapientum type, and the unnamed third was of the fibrous paradisiaca type. Xiāngjiāo (香蕉 "fragrant banana") is the common name in Modern Standard Chinese usage.