Flowers in T'ang Poetry: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate

Author(s): Donald Harper

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society , Jan. - Mar., 1986, Vol. 106, No. 1,
Sinological Studies Dedicated to Edward H. Schafer (Jan. - Mar., 1986), pp. 139-153
Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/602368

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 FLOWERS IN T'ANG POETRY:
POMEGRANATE, SEA POMEGRANATE, AND MOUNTAIN POMEGRANATE

DONALD HARPER

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

FLOWERS ATTRACTED THE ADMIRATION of poets of
the T'ang period as never before in Chinese poetry.'
The beauties of their coloration and form, as well as
their habitats and seasonal habits, were meticulously
recorded. Among the reasons for the attention poets
lavished on flowers, we may cite the remarkable innova-
tions in floriculture during the T'ang. Rare specimens
of flowering plants transplanted from the wild were
cultivated in the gardens of temples, noble residences,
and private homes. Several poets were noted floricul-
turists. In this setting, flowers were not simply per-
ceived as one element among many in the grand
harmony of nature, but rather became imbued with
qualities unique to each flower. T'ang visions of flowers
were crystallized by its poets. Their words are the keys
by which we gain access to the T'ang imagination and
its fascination with flowers.
Although the title of the present article might suggest
that I am writing about three varieties of pomegranate,
it is a deception. There were several names for the
The scholarship of Edward H. Schafer has illumined all
aspects of T'ang culture and artistic expression. In taking up
the subject of flowers in poetry I am indebted to Professor occurred in Six Dynasties literature. It continued to
Schafer, for he has defined the characteristics of nature
appreciation in the T'ang and written extensively about
flowers. There is, in addition, a more personal indebtedness.
It was as Professor Schafer's student that I learned the
discipline and pleasure of reading classical Chinese literature.
I am happy to be able to contribute to the issue of the Journal pomegranate in the minds of these post-T'ang readers.
honoring him.
' This article was written during my tenure as a Mellon
fellow in the Department of Asian Languages, Stanford
University, for whose support I am grateful.
E. H. Schafer has examined the T'ang view of nature
in many books and articles. In connection with gardens
and flowers, I would mention especially: Tu Wan's Stone
Catalogue of Cloudy Forest (Berkeley, 1961); The Golden
Peaches of Samarkand (Berkeley, 1963), 117-32 (on plants);
The Vermilion Bird (Berkeley, 1967), 198-205 (on beautiful
plants); and "Li Te-yu and the Azalea," Asiatische Studien
18-19 (1965), 105-14.
pomegranate in T'ang times. The subject of my in-
vestigation is the name an-shih liu VEV (commonly
abbreviated to shih liu) and the names of two other
flowering plants derived from it. The pomegranate is a
native of Iran, and it was brought to China from
someplace in western Asia. The name an-shih liu is
composed of a transliteration of the foreign place with
which the Chinese associated the pomegranate (An-
shih) and a syllable representing a foreign word for
pomegranate (liu). The name occurs in a newly dis-
covered manuscript from Ma-wang-tui ,% T: it tomb
three in Ch'ang-sha :k jil, Hunan (burial dated 168
B.C.). The manuscript shows that the pomegranate was
already in China by the early second century B.C. and
that its original Chinese name was an-shih liu.2
The plant name I have rendered as "sea pome-
granate" is hai shih liu tVEffl (or simply hai liu); an
"mountain pomegranate" is shan shih liu tO jJU (or
shan liu). Even following the T'ang, later generations
of Chinese have recognized shan shih Iiu as a name for
the azalea. The name occurred in Six Dynasties litera-
ture, and resulted from the perceived similarity between
azalea flowers when first observed in the wild and the
pomegranate's blooms. The name hai shih liu also
appear in T'ang literature. But from Sung times on, the
word and its botanical referent became obsolete. Upon
encountering the word in T'ang poetry, many com-
mentators identified hai shih liu as a synonym of an-
shih liu, and thus the flower so named became a
In T'ang usage, however, the hai shih liu was the third
member of a floral triad that was linguistically bound
by the common root (shih) liu. Like shan shih liu, the
name hai shih liu was a hybrid word derived from a
' The history of the pomegranate (Punica granatum) in
China has been studied by B. Laufer, Sino-Iranica (Chicago,
1919), 276-87. Laufer's theories regarding the date the pome-
granate was first brought to China and the identification of
An-shih need to be revised, especially in light of the new
Ma-wang-tui manuscript evidence. These matters will be
discussed below.

139

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140 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

comparison of the plant's flowers to the pomegranate's.
The actual plant denoted by the name was the camellia.
Traditional nomenclature often links by name plants
which by the standards of modern botanical classi-
fication belong to discrete subdivisions of the plant
world. The pomegranate enjoyed great favor in the
terms, such as "liu flower" (liu hua ta ) or "red liu"
Six Dynasties period. According to the botanically
erudite T'ao Hung-ching Pj CL a (456-536), the pome-
(hung liHu aF )? might in the context of a particular
granate's flowers were its chief attraction:3
The flowers of the pomegranate are red and lovable,
thus many people cultivate it. It is regarded with
importance especially by foreign lands. There are two
varieties, sweet and sour. Medical specialists use only
the root and peel of the sour one. Pomegranate seeds
are something which those who practice dietetics
forbid.
Like many of the ornamentals in gardens today, the
pomegranate was valued more as a pretty exotic than
as a source of fine fruit.4 The flower appeared in Six
Dynasties poetry as the essence of red beauty. Even the
shape and scarlet color of a courtesan's dancing cos-
tume were compared to the pomegranate flower in the
term "pomegranate skirt" (shih liu (h 'un )5
While it is uncertain when the Chinese first began to
take notice of azaleas and camellias, it was unquestion-
ably at a time after pomegranate flowers had achieved
a certain vogue. In terms of Six Dynasties flower lore,
there would have been a definite logic to naming the
newly discovered blooms after the pomegranate.
Occurrences of the azalea and the camellia are rare
in extant Six Dynasties poetry, and they are presented
as wildflowers. It is the T'ang poets who show us
azaleas and camellias transplanted into gardens, trans-
ferring their beauty into words in a variety of novel
images. In describing the qualities of the flowers, it is
apparent that the poets were influenced in their per-
ception of the azalea and the camellia by the nomen-
the world of words, the world in which the poets
created their own fantastic truths, the syllables shih liu
or just liu bespoke a secret unity. A reference to the hai
shih liu (camellia) that bloomed in winter was auto-
matically juxtaposed in the T'ang mind with the shih
liu (pomegranate) that bloomed in summer. Ambiguous
poem have been seen to denote one specific flower; yet
the very ambiguity of the terms invited thoughts of the
other two liu flowers. In short, the proper names shih
liu, hai shih liu, and shan shih liu allowed for a visual
inference in poetry whereby the qualities of the pome-
granate, the camellia, and the azalea were interwoven.
The resultant image of nature was one that could only
be realized in the medium of words.
I propose to focus on this triad of names for the
pomegranate, the camellia, and the azalea in T'ang
poetry. Both the pomegranate and the azalea had other
names during the T'ang period. The alternate names
implicated the flowers in still other verbal networks,
revealing them in different aspects. I will not dwell on
the poetry in which the pomegranate and the azalea
appear in their other identities. In the case of the
camellia, hai shih liu was its only name during the
T'ang, until the ninth century when a variety of
camellia called shan ch 'a XU 4f ("mountain tea")
appeared. By Sung times the name shan ch'a had
replaced hai shih liu as the general designation for the
camellia. It appears that the name hai shih liu lost its
original identity and was read as a name for the
pomegranate when it occurred in T'ang literature. Due
to these lexical vicissitudes the camellia became a lost
flower in T'ang poetry, and T'ang camellia imagery
languished unrecognized. The camellia's comeback is
long overdue and should enhance the appreciation of
T'ang poetry.
FLORAL IDENTIFICATIONS

clature linking them to the pomegranate. In the world

of nature many things distinguished the three: they The names hai shih liu for camellia and shan shih liu

bloomed at different times, they throve in different for azalea were adopted during the Six Dynasties
climes, they had different "personalities." However in period based on the name an-shih liu for pomegranate.
Notices of the three plants in Six Dynasties sources
provide a firm pre-T'ang terminus post quem for the
3 Quoted in Pen ts'ao kang mu *Vg E (Hong Kong, existence of the /iu-flower triad.6 In the case of hai shih
1965), 30.79.

4 The fruit was eaten and thought to be tasty, but even in the
6 The first scholar to take note of what I call the liu-flower
T'ang period pharmacologists continued to warn people triad was Shinoda Osamu EER in his article, "T6-shi
about pomegranates. Meng Shen AWE (seventh century) shokubutsu shaku" CIME , in Yabuuchi Kiyoshi
held that eating too many pomegranate seeds, "damages the RN* ,# , ed., Chiigoku chiisei kagaku gijutsu-shi no
teeth and makes them turn black" (Pen ts 'ao kang mu, 30.79). kenkyiirm 43 ft Elk R ' )t. Rf(Tokyo, 1963), 362 (re-
' See n. 75 below. printed in Shinoda, Chuigoku tabemono-shi no kenkyui

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 *HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 141

Iiu, there is important evidence from ancient Japanese suppose that the plant arrived in China before the end
sources as well. But first, an-shih Iiu. of the third century B.C.9
Several Six Dynasties sources credit Chang Ch'ien Now that the presence of the pomegranate and the
transliteration An-shih are on record ca. 168 B.C., we
XMF with the introduction of the pomegranate follow-
ing his expedition to the West during the years 138-126 must reconsider the identification of An-shih (*jan-
B.C. Legend made Chang Ch'ien the discoverer of d]iik) as a transliteration of Arsak. Previously, An-shih
many items of foreign origin. The absence of any was first attested in the received literature of the Six
record of Chang Ch'ien and the pomegranate in Han Dynasties period, and it was regarded as a later variant
sources has led modern scholars to doubt the Six of An-hsi (*1an-siak) in the Han histories. References
Dynasties tradition and to hypothesize a later date for to An-hsi in the Shih chi and Han shu are based on
its introduction to China. Berthold Laufer concluded reports of the West from the late second century B.C. at
that the pomegranate first arrived in the late third a time when Parthian power was pre-eminent in western
century A.D. Laufer equated An-shih (* an-,tik) with Asia. During the third and early second centuries B.C.
the foreign land An-hsi V ,e. (*an-siak) described the
in Arsacids were still competing for supremacy, and it
the accounts of the West in the Shih chi 4 b and Han
shu It . He identified both as transliterations of
Arsak, the name of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia, and
argued that they were the Chinese name for Parthia.7 speculates that the graph Up was derived from liu P

Laufer also speculated on the foreign word represented ("tumor"). For the popular etymology relating liu "pome-

by the syllable liu (*1i g).8 With the discovery of the granate" with Iiu "tumor," the idea being that the fruit

Ma-wang-tui manuscript the antiquity of the pome- resembles a tumorous growth, see Li Shih-chen's J*
granate in China is no longer in doubt. The manuscript (1518-1593) explanation of an-shih liu, Pen Wsao kang mu,
is a collection of medical recipes in which the pome- 30.79. 1 do not think that this popular etymology, which is not

granate (an-shih liu) is named along with other sub- attested in any Han or Six Dynasties source, explains the

stances used as drugs. Thus the pomegranate was origin of the Chinese word and the derivation of the graph. In

already incorporated into Chinese materia medica in any case, the word/graph liu 4 was devised to represent a

the early second century B.C., well before the time of foreign word for the pomegranate (the graph is not found in

Chang Ch'ien's journey. It would be reasonable to Han lexical works). Shih, Ch i min Yao shu chin shih, 745,
argues that there must have been a Chinese plant named liu
e which served as the basis for naming the pomegranate the
"liu from An-shih." Shih's speculation that the native plant
r>X**5PE9)7)~f3 A (Tokyo, 1978), 151-53). Shinoda's ar- was Rosa laevigata is based on a misidentification. Shih
ticle prompted me to examine the three flowers in greater associates the name shan shih liu OE4 in the Ch 7i min'ao
detail. shu with Rosa laevigata when in fact the name refers to the
7 Laufer, Sino-Irani(a, 284-85. Laufer appears to have azalea (see n. 38 below). Shan shih Iiu is first listed as an
missed the several Later Han references to the pomegranate alternate name for Rosa laevigata (principal name chin sing
(see n. 12 below). A great number of the Six Dynasties I--u God ) by Li Shih-chen in Pen Is'ao kang mu, 36.95,
references to the pomegranate (including the Chang Ch'ien who notes that the name is due to the plant's resemblance to
legend) are quoted in the sixth century Chti min Yao shu shan shih Iiu. Thus the name shan shih liu for Rosa laevigata
f ;f by Chia Ssu-hsieh , . See Shih Sheng- is late and derivative.
han EF ^ , Chi Din Yao shu (hin shih by (Peking, 9 For information on the date of burial and on the manu-
1957), ch. 4, sec. 41, p. 270. On the Han accounts of An-hsi scripts discovered in Ma-wang-tui tomb three, see Jeffrey K.
and other lands of the West, see the recent monograph by Riegel, "A summary of some recent Wenwtu and Kaogu
A. F. P. Hulsew6, China in Central Asia, The Earl} Stage: articles: Mawangdui tombs two and three," Earl} China I
125 B.C.-A.D. 23 (Sinica Leidensia 14, Leiden, 1979). 1 use (1975), 10-15. The manuscript mentioning the pomegranate
the archaic Chinese reconstructions of B. Karigren, Gramniata
has been assigned the title Tva liao fang t~iy . A transcrip-
Serica Recensa (Stockholm, 1957). tion of the manuscript has not yet been published. The
8 Laufer, Sino-Iranica, pp. 285-85. Laufer's proposal for occurrence of the pomegranate in it is discussed in Chou Shih-
the "lost Iranian word" based on his reconstruction *riu for jung P9 LOr* , "LUeh t'an Ma-wang-tui ch'u t'u te po shu chu
liu is unlikely. R. A. Miller, "The Etymology of Chinese liu chien" it t% i+ t l M , Ma- wang-tui i shu
'Pomegranate,"' Language 27 (1951), 154-58, reconstructs an yen chiu chuan k'an . IIf flR tAflJ2 (1981), 34-35.
original form *ml6g for liu which he compares with Semitic Chou notes that there is a lacuna preceding the graphs ,
words for the pomegranate (e.g., Hebrew rinmmn). Miller but that the manuscript must have read -454E? 4

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 142 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)
is less likely that the Chinese would have known of
them at that time. I propose identifying An-shih with
the city of Antioch in Margiane. The walled city was
esablished by the Seleucid king Antiochus I in the early
third century B.C. It was an important trading center,
and no doubt in the third century B.C. certain goods
were already passing through Antioch on their way to
and from China. The pomegranate was probably
brought to China by this route and the Chinese
associated it with Antioch.'0 Besides the historical and
been under cultivation during the Han, even if the
circumstantial evidence in favor of identifying An-shih
with Antioch and An-hsi with Arsak, the phonological
evidence indicates that the two transliterations do not
represent the same foreign word. An-shih (*.an-Jdjk) been imported along with the plant. Since antiquity the
is a good transliteration of Antioch, but not of Arsak.1"
Regrettably, references to the pomegranate are mostly
absent from the received literature of the Han period.12
Perhaps the pomegranate mentioned in the Ma-wang-
tui manuscript was an oddity in the second century B.C.
'0 On the building of the city by Antiochus I and its position
on the route from western to eastern Asia, see W. Barthold,
An Historical Geographi' of Iran, tr. S. Soucek (Princeton,
1984), 43. Antioch was subsequently known as Marw (Merv).
According to Muslim accounts the city was originally founded
by Alexander (Barthold, 49).
" An (*.an) was used for *an- and *ar- in Han translitera-
tions of foreign words. See E. G. Pulleyblank, "The Con-
sonantal System of Old Chinese. Part II," Asia Major 9
(1962), 228. Pulleyblank cites as examples An-tun t
(*-dn-tan) for Anton(inus) and An-hsi (*-.in-sidk) for Arsak.
W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bacaria and India (Cambridge,
1951), 281, n. 5, notes that the location given for An-hsi in the
Han shu fits the geographical position of Antioch (Merv).
Tarn regards this as proof that An-hsi transliterates Antioch,
not Arsak. But as Tarn himself demonstrates, the Shih (hi
and Han shu accounts of An-hsi are based on Chinese reports
post-124 B.C., when the Arsacid king Mithridates 11 had
incorporated Antioch into the Parthian realm. In using An-
hsi to refer to the region around Antioch the Chinese were
localizing the Arsacid-Parthian presence there, not naming
Antioch itself.
1 There are several Later Han references to the pome-
granate by the name jo liu W . See Chang Heng
ffi * (78-139), "Nan tu fu," Wen hsiian Li Shan chu
tZ~tS (1880 woodblock ed.), 4.5b; and Ts'ai Yung
(133-92), "Ts'ui niao," Ch'uan Han san kuo Chin
nan pei ch'ao shih + (Taipei, 1969;
hereafter CHS), Ch'uan Han shih a , 2.13b (p. 41);
on the latter poem, see Paul W. Kroll, "The Image of
the Halcyon Kingfisher in Medieval Chinese Poetry," JAOS
104.2 (1984), 240.
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I suspect, however, that while the written record is
mostly silent, the pomegranate was being cultivated
during the Han and was gradually gaining popularity.
The descriptions of the pomegranate in Six Dynasties
sources are indicative of a plant whose cultivation in
China was well established, not one only recently
introduced. The tradition recorded in Six Dynasties
texts that Chang Ch'ien brought the pomegranate to
China reflects the general awareness that it had already
attribution to Chang Ch'ien was fictitious.'3
Pomegranate lore grew during the Six Dynasties
period. Some beliefs about the fruit appear to have
fruit has been associated with fertility in Iranian,
Arabic, and Mediterranean cultures; and it has sym-
bolic uses in marriage custom. In China, presentation
of pomegranates in wedding celebrations was docu-
mented in the sixth century, along with the explanation
that the fruit symbolized the wish for many sons and
grandsons."4 Even in the absence of any knowledge of
foreign pomegranate lore, the fruit-a membranous
sack bursting with seeds-would probably have been
seen as a fertility symbol in China; but native observa-
tions were no doubt stimulated by foreign information.
As an exotic delicacy the fruit had admirers, yet
it was considered prudent to eat it sparingly, if at
all. T'ao Hung-ching's statement that dieticians for-
bade pomegranate seeds was echoed by another Six
Dynasties authority on dietetics, Ts'ui Yu-hsi A g ,
who stated that overindulgence injured a person's
vitality.'5 Like T'ao, Ts'ui also drew attention to the
pomegranate's charming red flowers as the reason for
13 In addition to the fact that the Later Han poets Chang
Heng and Ts'ai Yung mentioned the pomegranate, the poem
by the Chin poet P'an YUeh cited in n. 52 below includes a
preface calling the pomegranate "a singular tree in Under
Heaven, and a renowned fruit among the Nine Realms." I
interpret this as attestation of the popularity and cultivation
of the pomegranate during P'an Yiieh's lifetime (rather than
as evidence of the first cultivation of the pomegranate in
China, as Laufer does).
14 See Laufer, Sino-Iranica, 286-87.
'5 Quotations from a Shih (hing A.f (Food Canon) by
Ts'ui Yii-hsi in Tamba Yasuyori's ITaIR Ishinipi5
&C, i (completed in 984; 1 use the reproduction of the 1859
woodblock ed., Tokyo, 1973), preserve fragments of the Th'ui
shih shih (hing r S; a. k listed in the bibliographic treatise
of the Sui shu p- (see lshimpi, hardbound introductory
volume, p. 23). Ts'ui Yii-hsi's notice on the pomegranate is
quoted in !shimpoi, 30.16b.
 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 143

its widespread cultivation, adding that they were known manifested a quality of redness saturated with solar
as "longevity flowers" (yen nien hua 4igTt' ). The fire. Imagery involving the two flowers occurred in allu-
virtues of many plants are best represented by their sions to the fifth-of-the-fifth festival in T'ang poetry.
flowers; and in their enjoyment of pomegranate flowers The redness of pomegranate skin and pomegranate
the Chinese incorporated the foreign plant into a seeds were also noted in poetry, but the ideal of
typically Chinese pattern of floral associations. pomegranate-red was represented by the flower.'9
It was highly significant that the pomegranate This ideal must have already formed during the Six
bloomed in the summer, normally in the fifth lunar Dynasties, and must have been an important factor in
month, thus acting in concert with the chromatic naming the camellia and azalea.
symbolism of the seasonal cycle. Chang Tsai Hi (fl. The camellia designated hai shih Iiu during the Six
ca. 290) was perhaps the first poet to record this Dynasties was certainly red, not white, for it was the
sympathy with nature:'6 red flower that suggested a comparison with the pome-
granate. Many species of the genus Camellia with
Rising in blue-green spring, then it sends forth shoots;
flowers in white and red shades are native to China,
Basking in red summer, then it releases brilliant color. including the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and the
showy YUnnan reticulatas (Camellia reticulata).20 There
By T'ang times the epithet "liu flower of the fifth are gorgeous reds among the reticulatas, but it is
month" was one way to refer to the pomegranate unlikely that these natives of the remote Southwest
flower; and in the floral calendars of later centuries it were familiar to the people then living in the Chinese
became the official flower of the fifth month.' heartlands. The Yunnan reticulatas were not, for
Other red flowers bloomed in the summer and example, the red hai liu described by Chiang Tsung
emblematized the fiery brilliance of the sun at the time A (519-594) in a poem about his vacation retreat.
of the summer solstice, which came during the fifth Chiang served both the Liang and Ch'en rulers at the
month. Native daylilies (hsian ts'ao -Ma A ) appear to
southern capital Chien-k'ang A , and the camellias
have preceded pomegranate flowers as the red flower he described must have been a variety already growing
of the fifth month. A third-century description of in the local countryside.2' Further, the name hai shih
seasonal observances stated that daylilies were picked liu means literally that the plant came from "overseas."
on the fifth day of the fifth month and made into a There are two possible explanations: first, that the
medicinal condiment, this having been one of the plant itself was imported from abroad; or alternatively,
customs associated with the festival for the expulsion that people of the Six Dynasties period began to take
of pestilence celebrated on that day. On other occa- notice of a certain red camellia growing locally when
sions daylilies were worn by ladies who hoped to they were introduced to the camellia lore of a foreign
conceive a son.'8 Daylilies and pomegranate flowers people, and thus the name associated the plant with a
foreign origin even though it also occurred in China. In
pursuing the identification of hai shih liu, evidence
l6 "An-shih liu fu, Ch'uan shang ku san tai Ch'in Han san
could be adduced for both explanations. In either case,
kuo Iiu ch'ao wen I;-I T h/ ; (reproduc-
tion of 1893 woodblock ed., Peking, 1965; hereafter CSKW),
Japan may well have been the overseas source.

ChYman Chin wen ' 3 , 85.3b.

17 See Han Yi's poem cited in n. 50 below for "iu flower of
the fifth month." Several Ming floral calendars designate the
19 See Wan Ch'u's poem cited in n. 76 below for daylilies and
pomegranate the principal flower of the fifth month; for pomegranates
ex- in connection with the fifth-of-the-fifth festival
ample, T'u Pen-chun's X *4 P'ingshihyiehpiao E X , in the T'ang. Shinoda, "T6-shi shokubutsu," 362, observes
in Ku chin t'u shu chi ch'eng td-z A `TX (reproduction of that in color compounds the word (shih) Iiu regularly refers to
1726 movable type ed., Shanghai, 1934), ts'e 531, ch. 10, the red of pomegranate flowers.
p. 45a.
20 On Chinese camellias, see H. L. Li, The Garden Flowers
18 See the reconstructed edition of Chou Ch'u feng tu chiof China (New York, 1959), 79-85; and T. Durrant, The
t& ,if t h (by Chou Ch'u, ?236-97) in Moriya Mitsuo Camellia StorY (Auckland, 1982), 1-16.
t 1 a hi) , Chagoku ko saijiki no kenkyi 41 . 21 "Shan tingch'unjih,"CHSChiuanCh'enshih
i A (Tokyo, 1963), 314. The fifth-of-the-fifth, or the day
3.9b (p. 1420):
of the summer solstice, was regarded as the best time for The banks are made green by the river willows;
gathering certain medicinal plants (artemisia, for example) The pool is made red by the reflection of camellias (hai
whose potency was believed to be strongest then. liU).

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 144 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

The oldest Chinese textual witness to the botanical
identity of the plant named hai shih liu is a fragment
from the Six Dynasties dietician Ts'ui Yii-hsi's writings
preserved in a tenth-century Japanese pharmacopeia.
Among twenty-one "drugs of deathlessness" (pu ssu
chih Yao T-EfZ& ), Ts'ui listed "oil of sea pome-
granate" (hai shih liu j'u A Eg ), with the nota-
tion that the plant was found in the "sea islands" and
that it resembled the an-shih liu. There can be no
doubt that Ts'ui was referring to the oil extracted from
the seeds of the camellia. Camellia oil is still used today
for cooking and dressing hair in both China and
Japan.22
Judging from Ts'ui's account, camellia oil was a rare
commodity in the Six Dynasties, something obtained
from the mysterious islands in the Eastern Sea. In
Japan, on the other hand, records indicate that the
camellia had been appreciated and used-its wood,
flowers, and seeds-as early as the first century A.D. In
the Nihon-shoki El *-A: -*E and other eighth-century a Chinese native, theorizing that the wild growth came
documents, the name 54 was borrowed from
China, although the graph f4 was adopted as cultivation.
well to If this is the case, the original japonica
represent the Japanese word tsubaki for camellia.23
22 This fragment from Ts'ui Yu-hsi's writings is preserved in
the Honzo Wamyo *zViffl t (completed ca. 918; I use the
edition in Nihon koten zenshui B * It , Tokyo,
1926), 2.14b. Shinoda, "T6-shi shokubutsu," 362, cites the
Ishimnp5 as the source for Ts'ui Yu-hsi's description of hai
shih /iu Xvu, but I have been unable to locate the passage in the
lshiminp0. The entry for shan ch'a in Pen ts'ao kang mu,
36. 123, describes extracting the oil from the seeds for use on
the hair. For the current use of camellia oil in China and
Japan, see Durrant, The Camellia StorY, 8.
23 In China, ch'un 4 was a name for Toona sinensis
(Chinese cedrela) or possibly a tree in the genus Ailanthus,
but was never applied to the camellia. When the Japanese
used the graph by for tsubaki, it was devised to designate the
camellia as "the tree (* ) that bloomed close to spring (# )."
See the explanations in the section on tsubaki in Koji ruien
tXE (Tokyo, 1931), v. 58, p. 537, quoting Kariya
Ekisai's X ' M M (d. 1835) commentary to the tenth-
century Wamy5 ruijush6 l It should be noted
that traditional Japanese scholars not only knew that the
name Nfi e for camellia had been borrowed from
T'ang China, but also recognized the fact that in China
from Sung times on this name for camellia had become
obsolete (having been replaced by shan ch'a) and was
commonly misunderstood by Chinese readers of T'ang
literature. See the quotations from the Heishokudan fUXX
27 See Li, Garden Flowers, 122-23. The crab apple was also
and Kokon yorank6 t +X in Koji ruien, v. 58, known as hai hung Ak* . The T'ang literatus Li Te-yii,
pp. 538-39.
The Nihon-shoki mentions the camellia ( j*,e ) in
connection with events of the first century B.C. when
the monarch Keiko ffie had his soldiers make mallets
from camellia wood with which to attack the Tsuchi-
gumo j g~pt *24 The camellia occurs with its bor-
rowed Chinese name in the Man vshh a i A, and
the Shoku Nihon-shoki 4 E $ X V describes the
Japanese monarch's presentation of a container of
camellia oil ( )jNkFf [I) to an envoy from Po-hai
m X in the year 777.25 Any Six Dynasties reports
about the camellia and camellia products from the
eastern "sea islands" probably emanated from Japan.
But was the camellia the Chinese named hai shih liu
a foreign introduction, or was it already growing in
China? I think the second alternative is the correct one.
The most likely candidate among species with red-
flowered varieties is Camellia japoni(a, which is indig-
enous to Japan, Korea, eastern China, and the Ryukyu
Islands. Some botanists question whether the species is
about when japonica camellias escaped from garden
cultivars might have been introduced from Japan or
Korea.26 Since we cannot be certain that the Chinese
had Camel/ia japoni(a specifically in mind when they
adopted the name hai shih liu, the question of the
former's native status in China need not be the decisive
factor in determining whether the camellia named hai
shih liu was imported or domestic. Another species
could have been the one observed during the Six
Dynasties. In T'ang times the qualification "overseas"
was also applied to the flowering crab apple, which is
native to China, in the name hai t'ang , ("sea
pear"); and the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla was
cited by some as the source of the crab apple.27 My
24 ihon-shoki (Rikkokushi ,8@EM, Osaka, 1928-31),
7.146.
2M Manyoshii (Nihon koten zenshu B , Tokyo,
1955), 19.142, (Kokka taikan no. 4152); and Shoku Nihon-
shoki (Rikkokushi), 34.308.
26 See Durrant, The Camellia Story, 8. T. T. Yu and
B. Bartholomew, "The Origin and Classification of the Garden
Varieties of Camellia reticulata," The American Camellia
Yearbook 1980, p. 1, state that japonia is indigenous to
eastern China. Dr. Bartholomew, of the California Academy
of Sciences, San Francisco, informed me in conversation,
however, that some Chinese botanists still consider the ques-
tion to be an open one.
quoted in Pen tsWao kang mu, 30.66 (ap. hai hung), was the

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 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 145
own conclusion regarding the names hai shih Iiu and
hai t'ang is that knowledge of Japanese or Korean
plant lore played a role in the popularization of the
camellia and crab apple in China. It was this foreign
influence, and not the importation of the plants them-
selves, that led to the adoption of the names.
In general, the blooming season for camellias in
China is November to February, February being the
peak month.28 In the cycle of seasons, camellias have
nearly vanished by the time spring arrives, a transi-
tion which was already noted by Thearch Yang of the
Sui MM* (r. 604-617) in a poem on a spring
29
entertainment:
The camellias (hai liu), unfurled, are nearly gone;
The cherries in blossom have yet to fly.
T'ang poets also described early spring scenes by
referring to the blooming habits of camellias and
cherries.3 In addition, T'ang poets glorified the camel-
lia in its true season-winter. Its red petals burst forth
amidst the frost and snow of winter; it was designated
first to explain the meaning of the word hai in the names of
plants:
All flowers and trees which have the word hai in their
name come from beyond the sea. Hai tang is an
example of this.
T'ai ping kuang chi zF)* (Peking, 1959), 409.3316,
associates both crab apple (hai hung) and camellia (hai shih
/iu) with Silla, and gives a slightly different version of Li
Te-yu's statement:
Silla abounds in hai hung and hai shih /liu. Li Te-yU of
the T'ang, from Tsan-huang, said that those flowers
which carry the word hai all come from east of the sea.
I have extracted the data on the blooming season
for seventeen major varieties of wild camellias in China
from Chung-kuo Yun-nan jen min ch'u pan she 4P M fti k
C;? 0 ? A, et al., ed., Yin-nan shan cha hua Fij *X gJJ
(Tokyo, 1981; text in Japanese), 177-97. There are some
camellias that bloom as early as September and others that
bloom as late as April.
29 "Yen tung t'ang," CHS, Ch'uan Sui shih 1 , l.3b
(p. 1622).
30 See Tu Mu's t!t "Chien Mu San-shih chai chung t'ing
34 Li Te-yii described his garden in an essay, "P'ing ch'uan
hai liu hua hsieh," Chuan Tang shih 4j*" (Peking, 1960;
hereafter CTS), 524.5995:
(The hai /iu) does not wait for the cherry and does not Kuan-hsiu's poem, "Shan ch'a hua," is in CTS, 827.9318. The
chase away the mume.
The mume or "Japanese apricot" (mei # ) blooms in early
spring (see Li, Garden Flowers, 49) and thus shares part of its
blooming season with the camellia.
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the Iiu flower of the la gj (twelfth) lunar month; and in
this identity it was the counterpart to the liu flower of
3'1
the summer, the pomegranate. Whereas the pome-
granate was the floral blaze of the fiery season, the
camellia's red fire was set against winter ice.
There is a sizable body of T'ang poetry written
expressly about the hai shih liu, and camellias crop up
elsewhere in T'ang poetry under the same name (or
variations of it). Correspondingly, camellias are promi-
nent in Sung poetry, but under the name shan cha
OA 4, or ch'a hua At . The new word for camellia
made its first appearance during the T'ang. Tuan
Ch'eng-shih T hY; (d. 863) described shan (h'a
twice in the Yu j'ang tsa tsu f . The first entry
simply states that shan ch 'a resembles hai shih liu, and
that it comes from Kuei District ;t[VI (the region of
present day Kweilin) and Shu M (Szechwan).32 The
second entry provides more details, including: the
leaves resemble those of the tea plant (ch 'a shu A
Camellia sinensis), the flowers are a scarlet color, and
they bloom in the twelfth lunar month.33 In addition to
Tuan Ch'eng-shih's testimony, Li Te-yu 4tb ?
(787-849) wrote that the garden of his villa south of
Lo-yang had a shan ch 'a camellia from P'an-yti f A
(near Canton); and the Buddhist poet Kuan-hsiu -A fk.
who finished his years in the tenth century Szechwan
court, wrote a poem entitled "Shan ch'a hua" L f T .
These are the only references to shan ch a before the
Sung.
From the Yu 'ang tsa tsu we may surmise that shan
h 'a was similar to, but not identical with, hai shih liu.
Even though the Yu vang tsa tsu descriptions do not
permit us to specify the species of camellia designated
shan ch a, the name itself reveals a shift in plant
nomenclature away from the earlier association of
camellia flowers with the pomegranate and towards a
closer identification of these camellias with the tea-
producing member of the genus Camellia. One indica-
tion of the rapid obsolescence of the name hai shih liu
3 See the poem by Huang-fu Jan cited in n. 47 below; and
the poem by Ch'iian Te-yu cited in n. 49.
32 Yu lang isa tsu (TSCC ed.), HsA chi Of e, 9.245.
3 Ibid., 10.250.
shan chu ts'ao mu chi" T-J )9*3,, in Hui ch'ang
i p'in chi * As-at ( TSCC ed.), Pieh chi M'J , 9.232.
various T'ang references to shan ch'a for the camellia are all
discussed in Schafer, The Vermilion Bird, 201 (however,
Schafer treats the name hai shih liu in the Yu l'ang isa tsu as
referring to pomegranate rather than to camellia).
 146 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)
for the camellia after the ninth century are several
instances where Sung poets used hai /iu to denote the
pomegranate. They were obviously unaware of its
actual T'ang referent and used it simply as a synonym
of shih liu.35 As in T'ang poetry, the image of camellias
blooming in winter against frost and snow was popular
among Sung poets. But the name shan ch'a stripped
the camellia of certain aspects that it had acquired
under the name hai shih liu. For example, once shan
ch'a replaced hai shih liu as the general word for
camellias, the unique symbolism of the "/iu flower of
the fifth month" (pomegranate, summer) and the "/iu
flower of the la month" (camellia, winter) disappeared
as well.36
Azaleas grow natively throughout China, as do
many other members of the genus Rhododlendron. The
red azalea that acquired the name shan shih liu. in the
Six Dynasties period must have been Rhodiodendron
simsii, which is abundant in eastern China. The hills of
the Yangtze valley and elsewhere blush crimson during
the blooming season (generally March to May).37 The
earliest description of this azalea is in a fragment of the
Record of Mount Lu (Lu shan chi a LXI a ) by Chou
3 In a pair of poems on spring and summer, Ou-yang Hsiu
dodendlron molle, whose toxicity was believed fatal to
'PA A'M (1007-1072) used hai shih /iu to name the pome-
goats.40 This name or variants of it show up in T'ang
granate in the poem on summer. See Ou-Xang Wen-chung
ch'uan chi kMZ.' (SPPYed.), 8.5b:
The red of hai shih /iu sets mountain birds singing.
Another Sung poet, Fang Chiu-kung ;IL b , also treated
hai liu as the summer-blooming pomegranate. See his "Hai liu
hua," quoted in the section on shih liu in T'u shu chi ch'eng,
ts'e 553, ch. 282, p. 28b:
When Spring flowers have completely fallen, the hai
/iu opens.
36 Su Shih 9ft (1036-1101), "Wang Po-i suo tsang Chao
Ch'ang shan ch'a," quoted in the section on shan (h 'a in Tu
shu chi ch eng, is e 554, ch. 296, p. 42b wrote:
[Shan ch a] scatters fire amidst ice and snow.
And in "Shao Po-fan hsing ssu shan ch'a," loc. cit., wrote:
[Shan h 'a] coruscating with red like fire opens amidst
the snow.
Fan Ch'eng-ta E&k (1126-1193) wrote two poems which
mention the la month in describing the blooming of shan ch 'a: i m in'ao shu, ch. 4, sec. 41, p. 270. Schafer, "Li Te-yu
3 Ch
"Shih i ydeh shih jih Hai-yun shang shan ch'a," and "Shih erh
ydeh shih pa jih Hai-yin shang shan ch'a" (ibid., p. 43a).
3 See C. G. Bowers, Rhododendrons and Azaleas (New
York, 1960), 268; and Schafer, "Li Te-yU and the Azalea,"
1 11- 12. For the blooming season and other particulars on the
species simsii, see Chung-kuojen min ch'u pan she, et al., ed.,
Yinnan tu chilan hua P ttE (Tokyo, 198 1; text in
Japanese), 121.
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Ching-shih JE s9 " , fortuitously preserved among the
quotations gathered under the heading an-shih liu in
the sixth-century Ch'i min 'ao shu *j rjA , . The
passage describes the azaleas growing on Incense
Burner Peak (Hsiang Iu feng -*tkkl ) at Mount L
(located south of the Yangtze in the northern part of
present day Kiangsi):38
At the head of Incense Burner Peak is a large basin-
shaped rock that can seat several hundred people.
Shan shih Iiu grow hanging from the rock. The flowers
form during the third month. They resemble the
pomegranate (shih Iiu) in color, but are smaller. The
calyx is pink and the perianth purple. They have a
bright luster and are lovable.
Po Chu-i b 9 A (772-846), the great azalea enthu-
siast of the T'ang, also found red azaleas growing
around his retreat at Incense Burner Peak; and when
he was transferred to another post, he carried speci-
mens of Mount Lu azaleas to cultivate in the new
place. 3
There was an older name for the azalea in Six
Dynasties materia medica. Yang chih (chu _T-
("goat staggers") denoted the yellow-blossomed Rho-
poetry, even to designate the red azalea. But I have not
found examples in Six Dynasties poetry of either the
name i'ang chih (hu or any reference to the yellow
azalea. Six Dynasties poets only wrote of the red
azalea, and by the name shan shih /iu.4' As in the case
of the camellia, the azalea was named for its apparent
similarity to the already popular pomegranate flower-
the azalea having been the liu flower that grew wildly
in the hills. Thus, by the sixth century a red bouquet
existed-pomegranate, camellia, and azalea-in which
each of the three flowers shared with the other two its
identity as a liu flower.
One consequence of this mutually shared identity
was that the three were treated as a single category. For
example, the Ch 'i min lao shu places its description of
and the Azalea," 112, corrects Laufer (Sino-lranica, 281-82),
who thought that the shan shih /iu mentioned in this passage
was "a pomegranate-tree that reverted to the wild state."
39 See nn. 67-69 below.
40 See Schafer, "Li Te-yU and the Azalea," I 10-I 1.
4' Ibid., 112, notes examples of the Tang name hung chih
hu DIES for the red azalea (see also n. 69 below). See n. 42
below for Six Dynasties shan shih /iu poetry.
 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 147

Mount Lu azaleas in a section which otherwise deals LIU FLOWERS IN T'ANG POETRY

with the pomegranate and its cultivation. Similarly, the

seventh-century florilegium I wen lei chil gro In writing about the pomegranate, T'ang poets were
includes three Six Dynasties poems on azaleas (shan heir to a substantial body of Six Dynasties poetry on
shih liu) under the heading of pomegranate (shih liu).42 the theme of the shih liu. Although only a few examples
Both books present the pomegranate as the principal of poems on the shan shih liu from Six Dynasties
botanical category involved -citing earlier literature literature are now extant, Six Dynasties azalea poetry
concerning its importation and its fruit-and the azalea was no less influential. In the case of the camellia, I
is simply subsumed under this category with no cita- know of only two Six Dynasties poems in which hai
tions to indicate that it is botanically distinct from the shih liu imagery is incorporated.46 The many T'ang
pomegranate. Following what must have been a stan- poems written on the theme of the hai shih liu reflect
dard T'ang classification, the tenth-century florilegium the rise of camellia appreciation in the T'ang period,
Wen yian ading hua Vfp-) places T'ang poetry and it was in T'ang poetry that the three liu flowers
relating to the camellia (hai shih liu) under the category each received wide attention.
of pomegranate along with the azalea)3 A small number of poems explicitly juxtapose the
During the T'ang there was no confusion over the pomegranate with the azalea or the camellia, as in
identification of a pomegranate, a camellia, or an one of Huang-fu Jan's t By (714-767) camellia
47
azalea. Flower lore, not botany, was responsible for poems:
their having been classified together. However, ambi-
guities arising from the liu-flower classification of The camellia (hai liu), how could it yield
T'ang times confounded later readers. Shan shih liu to await the liu flower (liu hua)?
survived as a name for the azalea, although it ceased to Defying the snow, it opens first
be the principal name.44 The name hai shih liu, on the in the home of the Inner Scribe.
other hand, its Tang referent unrecognized, was taken
for a pomegranate-even when the context contained
Po's poem; perhaps he knew it was a camellia. The Ming
details specific to the camellia.5
commentator Tseng I i , however, clearly believed that hai
Iiu meant "pomegranate" when he wrote his commentary to
I wen lei cha (Peking, 1965), 86. 1480-82. The three Six Wen T'ing-yin's "Hai liu" (see n. 79). In explaining the title of
Dynasties azalea poems are: Shen Yueh ft*J (441-513), the poem, Tseng conflates the traditions about the an-shih liu
"Yung shan liu shih"; Yen Ts'e MfHRJ (fl. mid-fifth century), and the hai shih liu. After citing a Six Dynasties account of
"Shan shih liu fu"; and Chiang Yen Ii* (444-505), "Shan how Chang Ch'ien brought the an-shih liu to China from the
shih liu sung." The fact that there are no examples of hai shih country of An-shih, Tseng continues:
Iiu poetry in the I wen lei (hha section on shih Iiu probably Another source says that it comes from beyond the sea
means that there were no pre-T'ang poems written specifically in the country of Silla, and that it is also named hai liu.
on the theme of the camellia. Throughout his commentary to the poem, Tseng treats shih
43Wen lyian ling hua (Peking, 1966), 322.1668. This section Iiu and hai liu as synonyms.
on shih iiu is grouped generally with flowers; there is a second Among the varieties of shan (h a, there was one known as
section for shih Iiu together with fruits (326.1692). hai liu (h 'a hua $ s A T (see Pen ts ao kang mu, 36.123);
44 Tu chuan hua tie E ("hawk-cuckoo flower") was but it was one of many camellias whose name came from its
used for the red azalea in T'ang times (see n. 81 below), and resemblance to some other plant, and it appears that hai liu
has been the prevalent name since the Sung. was regarded as a variety of pomegranate. Indeed Li Shih-
45 There must have been a lingering awareness of the T'angchen lists hai shih liu as a variety of pomegranate in the entry
usage, although Ou-yang Hsiu's use of hai shih liu for for an-shih liu, Pen tsa() kang mu, 30.79. When the Ch'ing
pomegranate (see n. 35) suggests that the original meaning editors of the Ku chin tu shu chi ch 'eng placed T'ang hai shih
had already faded by the eleventh century. The only Sung liu poetry in the section on the pomegranate (ts'e 553, ch. 282,
commentator on T'ang poetry I have found who takes note of pp. 28a/ b), they genuinely thought that the poems were about
the word hai shih Iiu is Yang Ch'i-hsien % (fl. 1199). In pomegranates. T'ang shan shih liu poetry was placed correctly
his commentary to Li Po's "Yung lin nu tung ch'uang hai shih in the section on the azalea (tu chuan hua; ts'e 554, ch. 298,
liu" (see n. 51 below), Yang notes that "Silla abounds in hai pp. 54b-55a).
hung and hai shih Iiu," repeating the passage about hai shih 46 The poem by Chiang Tsung cited in n. 21; and the poem
Iiu in the T'ai p sing kuang (hi (see n. 27). Yang's commentaryby Thearch Yang of the Sui cited in n. 29.
does not specifically identify the plant named hai shih Iiu in Li 47 "Wei chung ch'eng hsi t'ing hai liu," CTS, 250.2833.

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 148 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)
Huang-fu intended a pun between hai liu and liu hua on
either side of the caesura in the first line. The liu flower
is certainly the pomegranate flower (the couplet con-
trasts the winter blooming of the camellia with the
summer blooming of the pomegranate), which is here
treated as the prototypic liu flower against which the
other liu flowers are compared.
However, most T'ang poets did not juxtapose two or
all three of the liu flowers so explicitly in the wording
of a poem. Nor did they accord equal attention to all
three flowers. Po Chti-i favored azaleas and composed
many poems on the theme of shan shih liu, while
writing none on the camellia.i8 The fact of a verbal
symbiosis between pomegranate, azalea, and camellia
was understood implicitly in any poem on one of the
liu flowers; and this fact did not become in itself a topic
for poetic treatment. Perhaps if it had been more of a
topic in T'ang literature, there would not have been
such confusion-especially over the identity of the
camellia following the T'ang. As it was, the flowers
were usually treated individually in poetry, but using
names and images which resonated with the other
flowers in the triad.
Ch'uan Te-yii f (759-818) called the camellia
the "liu flower of the la month":49
The liu flower of the la month swathes the snow with
red.
Whereas Huang-fu Jan described the camellia as the
flower that "defies the snow" and blooms ahead of the
pomegranate, Ch'Uan Te-yi! achieved the same effect
with a single epithet for the camellia. To a T'ang
audience this epithet for the winter-blooming camellia
automatically brought to mind the pomegranate, the
"liu flower of the fifth month" as described in a poem
by Han Yu Add (768-824):5?
The liu flower of the fifth month shines on [my] eyes
brightly.
Images which had earlier been applied to the pome-
granate were also extended to describe the azalea or
the camellia, and the residual associations with the
pomegranate images were surely apparent to poet and
4P Po Chu-i did, however, mention hai liu in "Liu t'i t'ien
chu ling yin liang ssu," CTS, 446.5007.
49 "Wei shih-chun t'ing hai liu yung," quoted in T'u shu chi
poem is quoted in I wven lei chu (see n. 42).
h eng, Is e 553, ch. 282, p. 28a.
50 "Liu hua," ibid.
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reader alike. Li Po JE 3 (701-762?) wrote of a
camellia growing beneath a window:5"
Beneath the eastern window of the woman of Lu,
The camellia (hai liu) is something rare in the world.
Coral gleaming through green water
Is inadequate to compare with its shining splendor.
The first poet to compare the red brilliance of flowers
blooming amidst leaves to coral seen through water
was the Chin poet P'an Yiieh If (247-300) in his
fu M on the pomegranate.52 He and P'an Ni '&Tt
(d. 311) also likened the pomegranate's flowers to stars
scintillating through clouds, an image which Yen Ts'e
foriJ (fl. mid-fifth century) took up in describing the
azalea:"3
Ringed in blue-green screening, a display of sparks.
Wound about by halcyon waves, a dispersion of stars.
The red blooms studding a leafy thicket mirror the
stars, either awash in halcyon waves or set into the
night sky. Perhaps the T'ang poet Meng Chiao tZ1
(751-814) was influenced by these images when he
wrote of the azalea (but using the name chih chu) that
the flowers were:54
Rampaging fire igniting the open ground.
Red stars dropping from the blue-green sky.
A thorough examination of T'ang pomegranate,
camellia, and azalea poetry would have to be set
against the background of all flower poetry before and
during the T'ang period. The association of red flowers
with fire, for example, was not unique to the liu
flowers; the red hues of certain flowers were already
described as "blazing" (cho cho rajj ) in the Shih
ching o .5 Six Dynasties poets wrote in praise of
51 "Yung lin nui tung ch'uang hai shih liu," Li T'ai-po ch'uan
chi chu 1AI bi % i (reproduction of the 1543 woodblock
ed., Taipei, 1962), 24.22b.
52 "Ho-yang t'ing ch'ien an-shih liu fu," CSKW, Chiian
Chin wen, 92. 1a/b.
2" P'an Yueh included this image in the poem just cited. P'an
Ni used it in his "An-shih liu fu," CSKW, Ch'uan Chin wen,
94.4b-5a. In some editions of both poems, the word hsing &
("star") is written hsiu g ("lunar mansion"). Yen Ts'e was the
younger brother of Yen Chun ikA (d. 459). His azalea
54 "Ch'ou Cheng P'i chih chu yung," CTS, 380.4259.
55 "T'ao yao" ,* (Mao 6).
 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 149

the hibiscus with an enthusiasm easily equal to that for
the pomegranate. "Like the panoply of stars on a still
night" and "coral shining in water" were among the
images applied to hibiscus flowers, sharing a notable wild habitat and then transplanted. A pair of poems by
affinity with the pomegranate.56 During the T'ang, the Sun Ti *3 it (fl. ca. 730) in honor of a colleague's
cultivated peony outshone the Iiu flowers among flower camellias recount how the plants were transported
connoisseurs and, judging from the sheer volume of
poetry, among poets.57
A description of the poetic treatment of just the Iiu
flowers during the T'ang can, nonetheless, provide us
in miniature with a picture of T'ang flower apprecia-
tion as well as of the influence of gardens and flori-
culture in shaping T'ang perceptions of nature. While
the pomegranate was an ancient garden tree and was
classified among the fruit trees, it appears that neither
the camellia nor the azalea were cultivated in gardens
before the T'ang. The best record of T'ang camellia and
azalea cultivation is the poetry written to commemo-
rate a fine specimen planted in a garden. Poets, of
course, still noted the wild growths of camellias and
azaleas in the natural landscape, but it was within the
garden that a more intimate identification with the
flowers occurred.
This feeling for flowers was a new development.
When a Six Dynasties poet composed a poem in praise
of a pomegranate, an azalea, or a hibiscus, the poem
was a verbal distillation meant to capture the essence
of a rare plant which exemplified nature's finest crea-
58
tions. Poems about flowers and flower imagery in
general focused on describing this ideal natural beauty,
which by association was also determinative in judge-
ments of human beauty. The T'ang poets were different.
Their flower poetry exhibited a strong empathetic
attachment to flowers, especially to those flowers that
were cultivated in gardens. The poet identified with
them emotionally, thereby investing the flowers with
feelings as well.
Floriculture must have been an important factor in
this development. As documented in the poetry, garden
camellias and azaleas were plants dug up from their
from afar to their new home. According to the first:59
The guest from Hsin-t'ing Commandery,
Brought to court many flowering plants.
They were transported to milord's geisha hall and well
situated,
When the camellia (hai Iiu) flowers first dropped.
Dew-gloss gleaming in the bead curtain,
Fragrant breezes enveloping the powdered walls.
In the proximity of camellias to the geisha hall, the
poet saw an intermingling of blooms and curtain
beads; and the walls of the hall were scented like the
makeup of a beautiful woman.60
Wei Ying-wu *ftj (737-?) worried over the fate
of a transplanted camellia in his garden:6'
Its leaves have a bitter, cold hue;
In the mountains frost and mists are abundant.
Even though this [plant] receives Yang effulgence,
What do you think will come of having transplanted its
root?
A similar concern for the well-being of a camellia runs
through a poem by Liu Tsung-yuan M jt (773-
819):62
Its weak trunk is not fully a foot long;
I think that far away it lodged at P'eng and Ying
Islands.

59 "T'ung ho yung lou ch'ien hai shih liu, erh shou," CTS.
118.1194. Hsin-t'ing V;1 was in the southwestern part of
56 For the first image, see Hsia-hou K'an , P;3; (243-91),
present-day Kiangsu.
"Ch'ao hua fu," CSKW, Chi'uan Chin wen, 68.5b; for the 60 The term fen pi OFFS ("powdered walls") refers to walls
second, see Chiang Tsung, "Nan Yueh mu chin fu," I wen lei plastered with hufen M r (carbonate of lead, or ceruse). On
chil, 89.1544. the use of this white compound as pigment, cosmetic, and
57 For discussion of T'ang peony appreciation following the whitewash, see Schafer, "The Early History of Lead Pigments
introduction of the tree-peony (nmu tan 4 ?9- ), see Li, Garden and Cosmetics in China," Toung Pao 44 (1956), 427-38.
Flowers, 22-24; and Schafer, "Li Te-yU and the Azalea," 105. Schafer, "Notes on T'ang Geisha: 2. The Masks and Arts
Peony poetry from T'ang times on fills three chapters in the of T'ang Courtesans," Schafer Sinological Papers, No. 4
Ku chin t 'u shu (hi (h 'eng (see ts e 554, ch. 289-91). (4 March 1984), studies the forms and significance of cosmetics
58 This genre of poetic evocations of plants may be traced and aromatics used by T'ang ladies.
back to the "Chu sung" W)Jk ("Ode to the Tangerine") in the 61 "I hai liu," CTS, 193.1994.
Ch'u tz'u MAi . 62 "Hsin chih hai shih liu," CTS, 353.3951.

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 150 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)
The moon is cold, the empty staircase lit by dawn;
In a dark dream, chromatic clouds are born.
The gemmy tree was pulled out from manure and
loam;
The rose-gem blooms were stuck into liverwort and
lichen.
The fragrant root conceals its facial color;
At year's end, for whom will it bloom?
Liu Tsung-ydan was also the author of an account
of the hunchbacked gardener Kuo T'o-t'o 17f 1
(Camel Kuo), whose horticultural skills were such
that every tree he ever propagated or transplanted
flourished.63 Liu Tsung-yuan's poem reveals his own
expertise in tending a fragile camellia which, having
journeyed through the magical paradises of the Eastern
Sea (the P'eng and Ying Islands), has taken up resi-
dence in the poet's garden. While we know little of
T'ang horticultural methods, when the poet states that
the camellia was removed from "manure and loam"
and placed in "liverwort and lichen" we may surmise
that mosses were used in gardening to help create
the proper soil conditions for the plants. Mosses
could be especially beneficial for camellias, which are
water- and acid-loving and require good drainage.64
The conclusion to Liu Tsung-yuan's poem antici-
pates the red camellias which will eventually appear
(the "facial color"), but which still lie latent in the
plant's root. The final rhetorical question reveals the
poet's personal identification with the camellia-when
it blooms, it will bloom for him. The projection of his
feelings onto this camellia is evident in a companion
poem, written on the occasion when Liu Tsung-yuan
detected his first white hairs, which is addressed to the
same camellia:65
Over the several years since it was planted,
I have loved the fragrant thicket;
Its harmonious resplendence and red color
I think are not the same.
From here on, speak no more
of the affairs of High Spring;
63 "Chung shu Kuo T'o-t'o chuan," Liu Tsung-yuan chi
87pvx;tj(Peking, 1979), 17.473. Cf. Schafer, Golden
Peaches, 117-18, on the story and subsequent legend of
Camel Kuo.
64 See Durrant, The Camellia Storv, 135; and V. H. Heywood
69 Waley, Po Ch/i-i, 120, translates, "There is white lotus in
and S. R. Chant, ed., Popular Enc(ylopedia of Plants
(Cambridge, 1982), 229 (ap. mosses and liverworts).
65 "Shih chien pai fa tCi suo chih hai shih Iiu," CTS,
353.3951-52.
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I look on wood turned old,
standing opposite a decrepit gaffer.
For Liu Tsung-yuan, his own sense of life on the wane
was mirrored by this cherished camellia.
Po Chti-i's many poems about azaleas also bear
witness to the sentiments of a floriculturist with a
strong attachment to his flowers. Perhaps Po Chu-i's
love affair with azaleas began during the years 815-819
when he was banished from the capital to a post in
Chiang District il)'I. There he spent much time visit-
ing the sights on Mount Lu, and built himself a cabin
below Incense Burner Peak.66 Po Chu-i must have
enjoyed the same wild growth of red azaleas mentioned
in the Six Dynasties Record of Mount Lu, for in 820,
after being transferred to Chung District ,P4'I1 (in
present day Szechwan), he wrote about the azaleas he
had brought with him from Mount Lu and trans-
planted in his new residence:67
Today's flowers in the district of Chung District,
Were last season's trees on the mountain crest of
Mount Lu.
I pitied the damaging of the roots, which were severed
and planted anew;
But now again I take delight in the opening of the
flowers, as numerous as of old.
I suspect that the azaleas came from the site of Po
Chu-i's retreat at Incense Burner Peak, which he
described in a letter to YUan Chen At (779-831)
written in 817:68
Flowing water circles around below the cabin. A
waterfall drops right by the eaves. Red liu and white
lotuses carpet the pool and flagstones.
The ambiguous term "red Iiu" has been taken to denote
pomegranates, but Po Chu-i meant it to refer to the
azaleas that grew so profusely around Mount Lu.69
66 On this period in Po Chii-i's life, see A. Waley, The Life
and Times of Po Chii-i (London, 1949), 115-28.
67 "Hsi shan shih Iiu hua k'ai, ch'i nien tzu Lu shan i lai," Po
Chu-ichi b ig (Peking, 1979), 18.392.
68 Ibid., 45.973. Waley, Po Chu-i, 119-21, summarizes the
contents of the letter.
my pool and red pomegranates on its bank." There is no
doubt that Po Chu-i meant "red liu" to refer to azaleas.
Whereas Po used "red liu" to identify the azaleas in his letter
to Yuan Chen, he used hung chih chu *IX and paifu
 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 151
For Po Chu-i azaleas were like gorgeous women
wholly absorbed in their own beauty. According to the
poet, the Mount Lu azaleas he brought to Chung
District (also known as Nan-pin a A) were oblivious
of the local flowers:70
They only know of glitter and sparkle, as they open
self-indulgently;
None fear the jealousy of Nan-pin's peaches and
plums.
Azaleas not only outclassed fruit-tree blossoms in Po
Chu-i's assessment, they were the betters of other
sophisticated garden flowers as well:7'
In one thicket a thousand blooms press against the
railing-
Red silkstuff cut into shreds, then made into a garland.
Wind rustles their dancing waists, the fragrance is
inexhaustible;
Dew dissolves on their painted faces, tears just dried.
Roses carry thorns-to clutch them is sure to be a
nuisance;
Lotus buds grow in mud--to trifle with them is also a
bother.
How could they equal these flowers beneath the entry
eaves?
They endure people's picking and handling, and sub-
mit wholly to people's gaze.
The poet's implication was that azaleas, unlike thorny
roses, did not mind being handled; and unlike stand-
offish lotuses which grew in pools out of reach, azaleas
were willing to be stared at.
A final example from among Po Chui-i's azalea
poems illustrates how the poet associated human emo-
tions with the flowers, allowing for the possibility of
envy between women and flowers:72
Small shrub azaleas (shan liu) are planted near the
flagstones;
Half bear red perianths which are bringing on flowers.
How could they know that Ssu-ma's wife is jealous?
jung b 7I for azaleas and lotuses in a poem describing
the nearby retreat of his friend Yuan Chi-hso YCt $t
(Yuan Chen's cousin). See "T'i Yuan Shih-pa hsi chii," Po
Chu-i chi, 16.334. The landscaping was probably similar to
that at his own cabin, including the azaleas and lotuses.
70 Poem cited in n. 67.
7' "T'i shan shih liu hua," Po Chd-i chi, 16.327.
72 "Hsi wen shan shih liu," ibid., p. 349.
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Were they transplanted in the front of the courtyard,
then they wouldn't open.
The poet considered the native charms of azaleas
sufficient to provoke even a famous beauty like the
wife of the Han poet Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju -1,%, au .
What prevented a confrontation between flower and
female, according to Po Chu-i, was the fact that the
azaleas would not bloom if transplanted in the exposed
surroundings of the front of the house.
Comparing flowers with beautiful women was a
recurrent theme among T'ang poets, peonies having
been a popular floral subject for this treatment.73
Floral adornments were also prominent in poetic
descriptions of women. In the case of the liu flowers,
several images can be traced to language about the
pomegranate in Six Dynasties poetry. Their use in
T'ang poetry and their extension to the camellia and
azalea are another example of how associations with
the word (shih) liu affected the T'ang perception of all
three flowers.
In the Six Dynasties period a woman's red dancing
skirt was known as the "pomegranate skirt" (shih liu
(h'un Ea M ). The (h 'un was a skirt constructed from
strips of fabric sewn together vertically.74 Like a pleated
dress, the (h 'un swirled freely as the woman danced.
The name "pomegranate skirt" suggested not only the
red color of the pomegranate flower, but also the
similarity of the sewn strips of fabric to the petals of
the flower. The skirt was a wearable flower. Thearch
Yuan of the Liang H * (r. 552-554) described the
skirt :75
Crocodilian dragons formed into brocade combat
phoenix patterns;
Lotuses make a belt for the pomegranate skirt.
73 A tale was already circulating in the T'ang that Li Po wrote
a set of lyrics on the beauties of peonies in honor of Yang
Kuei-fei "*E at one of Genitor HsUan's X 7' (r. 712-56)
peony-watching parties. For the poems, see "Ch'ing p'ing tiao
tz'u san shou," Li T'ai-po ch'uan chi chu, 5.18b-20b. Waley,
The Poetry and Career of Li Po (London, 1950), additional
note to p. 25, has shown the story surrounding their composi-
tion to be apochryphal.
74 Hayashi Minao **. E , a Kandai no bumbutsu x ft. c)
3V;40y (Kyoto, 1976), 14, analyzes the construction of the chain
(plates 1:23, 1:24, and 1:25 provide illustrations based on
archeological remains).
75 "Wu ch'i ch'O," CHS, Ch'uan Liang shih Add , 3.3a
(p. 946).
152 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986)

The richly patterned fabric and lotus belt must have
represented a very elegant style for the pomegranate
skirt.
Among T'ang poets the pomegranate skirt became a
stock image for women dancing. It was freshened,
however, by poets such as Wan Ch'u , M (fl. ca. 730),
for whom feminine adornments surpassed the beauty
of flowers:76
Her eyebrow paint eclipses daylily hues;
The red skirt causes pomegranate flowers to die from
envy.
Camellias (hai liu) open resembling fire;
They fall to pieces ahead of the spring-heralding wind.
Leaves in a jumble, clipped sheets turned green;
Flowers just right to stick into a chignon and redden it.
Tu Mu fit (803-852) wrote a somewhat similar
description of azaleas:80
Azaleas (shan liu), resembling fire, gleam across a
small mountain;
In their profusion they can touch, making radiant the
gaps between them.

One bloom on the jade hairpin of a beautiful woman,

The theme of Wan Ch'u's poem was watching a geisha
on the summer festival on the fifth day of the fifth
month. Daylilies and pomegranates were the red
flowers of the fifth month, but for the poet they did
Tunot
Mu's image of the hair set on fire by azaleas is
compare to the blaze coming from the geisha's eyes and
skirt.
Po Chti-i composed a couplet in which the pome-
granate skirt acquired azalea shades:77
Saffron aroma sweat moistens the song-scarf;
Azalea (shan shih liu) flowers stain the dancing skirt.
The lines capture a woman in the heat of her song and
dance. Her saffron-perfumed body is damp with sweat,
soaking the scarf that she holds to her face while
singing; and her skirt is stained, not with pomegranate
(shih liu) tints, but with azalea.
Flowers worn in the hair were another popular
female adornment. Thearch Chien-wen of the Liang
M i t * (r. 550) described young girls in skirts on a
781
pleasure outing:
In front of the belt, fragrant grasses are knotted;
On the side of the chignon, a pomegranate (shih liu) is
stuck in.
If the pomegranate was the sole liu hair-flower of the
Six Dynasties, T'ang poets noted the camellia and the
azalea. Wen T'ing-yun jS WIj (81 3?-70) wrote about
camelliasi9
I only suspect might set on fire the halcyon-cloud
chignon.
reminiscent of the sparks and stars "wound about by
halcyon waves" which Yen Ts'e used earlier to describe
the azalea, but now the association of the azalea's leafy
thicket with waves and clouds has been extended to
include a woman's hairdo.
Wen T'ing-yiin's and Tu Mu's images play on aspects
of the camellia and the azalea which suggest the
pomegranate: the flowers bloom "resembling fire" like
the summer pomegranate, and both are used like the
pomegranate to embellish a hairdo. But the most
important link with the pomegranate in their images is
the /iu-flower nomenclature itself. Poetic images are
shaped by words and their connotations. For a T'ang
poet to describe a hai liu in a woman's hair auto-
matically drew shih liu and even shan liu into the
image; and the identity of the camellia as a natural
thing was mixed with the pomegranate and the azalea.
T'ang poets' use of the name shan shih liu for the
azalea specifically to draw out the /iu-flower connota-
tions is clear from the contrasting use of another T'ang
name for the azalea, tu hiian hua ttfl4t (hawk-
cuckoo flower). The cry of the hawk-cuckoo in spring-
time was associated with the blooming of the azalea.
By the ninth century there was a tradition that the red
flowers were the blood of the hawk-cuckoo which had
stained the azalea. Tu Mu wrote several poems on the
hawk-cuckoo and the azalea in which the name for the

76 "Wu jih kuan chi," CTS, 145.1468-69. azalea was the bird's name and not shan liu. The choice

77Lu shih yu hsiao chi ch'i shih tso shang liu tseng,"CTS, of flower names was made to fit the image the poet
438.4876. wanted to create.8'

78 "Ho jen tu shui," CHS, Ch Han Liang shih, 2.19b (p. 933).
80 "Shan shih liu," CTS, 522.5971-72.
79 "Hai liu," Wen Fei-ch'ing shih chi ch'ien chu 1j9E1p
" % (reproduction of 1697 woodblock ed., Shanghai, 81 See "Tu chuan," CTS, 525.6015; and "Hsiian-ch'eng chien
1920), 7.8b. tu chilan hua," 184.1877. The second poem is also attributed

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 HARPER: Pomegranate, Sea Pomegranate, and Mountain Pomegranate 153

There are instances in T'ang poetry when terms
derived from the /iu-flower nomenclature are ambig-
uous, and the context must be examined for clues to
the identity of the flower. We have already seen that in
"purple chrysanthemum," made "red /iu" appear as a
a letter to Yuan Chen, Po Chu-i used "red /iu" to refer
to the azaleas around his cabin at Incense Burner Peak.
Wei Chuang *1AE (836-9 10) used "red /iu" to parallelidentities in the language of T'ang poets. The poets did
"purple chrysanthemum" (tzu ( hU Vi) in a poem:82 not invent the nomenclature, but they explored its
Purple chrysanthemums, riotously opening, hem in the
well;
Red /iu, beginning to bud, knock the base of the eaves.
Chrysanthemums bloom in the autumn. Thus Wei
Chuang's "red /iu" must have been camellias, which
would have been budding then.
Besides its autumnal context, the pairing of the "red
/iu" with the "purple chrysanthemum" creates an image
of rare flowers blooming consecutively. The standard
chrysanthemum, known since antiquity, was yellow.
White and purple chrysanthemums were first culti-
vated during the T'ang; and Wei Chuang's poem
provides one of the few references to the purple
chrysanthemum, a flower which, like the camellia, was
still rare in T'ang floriculture.83 As an isolated term in
to Li Po, but see Schafer, "Li Te-yti and the Azalea," Ill.
Schafer also discusses the name tu chiian.
82 "Hu Tu chiu chti," CTS, 698.8038.
8 See Li, Garden Flowers, 38.
T'ang speech, "red /iu" would probably have been
understood as a reference to the red of pomegranate
flowers.84 But Wei Chuang, by having put it alongside
camellia in his poem. Joined by nomenclature, the
pomegranate, the camellia, and the azalea shared
every nuance. To understand the significance of the
/iu-flower triad in T'ang poetry enables us to better
appreciate poetry that has been misunderstood for
centuries, and gives us a glimpse of the imagination
that produced the poetry.
84 Shinoda, "T6-shi shokubutsu," 362, mistakenly cites Wei
Chuang's poem as an example of "red liu" meaning "red
pomegranate flower."
Postscript: I have just received Ma-wang-tui Han mu po
shu, vol. 4 (Peking, 1985) which contains a transcription and
photographs of the Tsa liao fang, the manuscript reported to
contain the item an-shih liu (see n. 9 above). After examining
the photograph (p. 73, column 3), it is clear that the crucial
graph, the one identified as liu by Chou Shihjung, is not liu.
Thus the word an-shih liu does not occur in the Ma-wang-tui
manuscript. Nevertheless, it is still likely that the pomegranate
was given this name when introduced to China. Further, the
identification of an-shih as Antioch and an-hsi as Arsak does
not depend on proof that an-shih occurred first and an-hsi
later in Chinese sources. The phonological evidence indicates
that the two transcriptions represent different foreign names.

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