Jiù huāng běn cǎo 救荒本草
The Pharmacopoeia for Famine Relief by 朱橚 (Zhū Sù, Prince of Zhōu, 1361–1425, 明)
About the work
An 8-juan early-Míng famine-relief botanical reference, composed by Zhū Sù in Yǒnglè 4 (1406). The work catalogs 414 wild edible plants — many newly identified by Zhū Sù through field research in his Kāifēng court — with detailed illustrations and notes on parts edible, preparation methods, and toxicity warnings. The work is methodologically pioneering: where earlier Chinese pharmacognoses (the Shénnóng běn cǎo jīng tradition) had focused on medicinal use, Zhū Sù’s work focused on famine-emergency edibility. The frontmatter brackets to 1406.
Abstract
The Jiù huāng běn cǎo is a uniquely innovative pre-modern Chinese applied-botanical work and the most important pre-modern Chinese contribution to wild-edible-plant identification. The bibliographic record: Míng shǐ yìwén zhì; SKQS Zǐbù — Nóngjiā lèi.
Translations and research
- Bernard E. Read, Famine Foods Listed in the Chiu Huang Pen Ts’ao, Shanghai: Lester Institute, 1946. The classic Western treatment.
- Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilisation in China vol. 6.I (Botany, 1986) — extensive treatment.