Jiu Huang Ben Cao: A Plant Atlas for Famine

Jiu Huang Ben Cao from University of Pennsylvania's Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Book Cover

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Introduction

Jiu Huang Ben Cao ("Materia Medica for Famine Relief") was an illustrated botanical manual for plants that could be used for survival during famines, written by Zhu Su, who was the son of Hongwu Emperor in the Ming dynasty. A total of 414 species of plants were recorded, each with exquisite woodcut illustrations. Among them, 245 types of grass, 80 types of wood, 20 types of grain, 23 types of fruits, and 46 types of vegetable were organized into different sections. The edible parts were further categorized into leaves, roots, fruits, and so on to facilitate identification. The book has multiple different editions with this particular one likely being the first Japanese edition published around 1715 in Kyoto (京都) by Chōshōdō (長松堂). It is noteworthy that this book proposed to remove the toxicity of poisonous celandine by cooking it with "clean dirt", a method that is theoretically consistent with the chromatographic adsorption and separation invented by the Russian botanist Tsvet in 1906.