into Europe it was supposed to be the species of Rhus which yields Japanese varnish or lacquer; and even now it is often called in France Vernis du Japan. The tree, however, is unknown wild in Japan, and is seldom or never cultivated there. The Chinese in classical times were well acquainted with Ailanthus, which they called ch'u, a word explained as meaning "useless wood," as it was in ancient times (as well as at present) used only for firewood.[1] Popularly Ailanthus and Cedrela are now called ch'un trees, the former being distinguished as the "stinking ch'un," and the latter as the "fragrant ch'un,"
In China the Ailanthus grows to be a large tree; but the timber is little valued. The root-bark is used, as a strong infusion, in cases of dysentery.[2] In the Pharmaceutical Museum, London, there are several specimens of barks bearing the Chinese name for Ailanthus; but these are doubtfully referable to that species; and the whole subject of the use of Ailanthus bark for dysentery requires further investigation.[3]
In the Kew Museum there are specimens of silkworms (Attacus Cynthia, Drury), which feed on the leaves of Ailanthus in North China; and there are also samples of the "wild silk" produced, which is made into one kind of pongee. This species of silkworm was introduced into France in 1858; and large numbers of Ailanthus trees were planted with a view to the feeding of the silkworms. The winter of 1879 killed off all the silkworms; and apparently the cultivation of the tree in France for the production of silk is a thing of the past.
In the Kew Museum there is a note attached to a specimen of the wood of Ailanthus glandulosa from Tuscany, which says that the bark yields a resinous juice; but there is no account of such a resin from Chinese sources; and exudation from the bark has not been observed in trees growing in England or in France. In India, however, the resin, called muttee-pal, is derived from the bark of Ailanthus malabarica, and is used both as an incense and as a remedy for dysentery.
Introduction
Ailanthus glandulosa was first introduced from China in 1751. In Hortus Collinsonianus,[4] p. 2, a memorandum is copied which was left by Collinson, stating: "A stately tree raised from seed from Nankin in 1751, sent over by Father d'Incarville, my correspondent in China, to whom I sent many seeds in return; he sent it to me and the Royal Society." Père d'Incarville[5] was a French Jesuit missionary, who died at Peking in 1757. In Trans. Phil. Soc., 1757, a paper is printed, which was read on 25th November 1756, being a letter from John Ellis to P. C. Webb; and it mentions two trees which were growing, one in Webb's
- ↑ In the Shu-Ching, it is said: "In the ninth month they make firewood of the ch'u tree."
- ↑ On the therapeutical value of this drug, see articles by Drs. Dudgeon and Robert, in London Pharmaceutical Journal, ser. iii. iv. 890, and vii. 372.
- ↑ The bark has been found to be an excellent vermifuge in cases of tapeworm. See Hetet, in U.S. Dispens, 15th edition, 1564.
- ↑ Compiled by L. W. Dillwyn, and published at Swansea in 1843.
- ↑ In Cibot, Mém. Conc. Chinois, ii. 1777, 583, d'Incarville's "Mémoire sur les vers à soie sauvage" is published, in which he speaks of the Ailanthus as the frêne puant (stinking ash) of North China.
