Note 16 — Chapter X · The Mother-goddess of China and Japan

Another Chinese “tree-cult” favoured, instead of the peach tree, a cassia tree. This cassia-cult must have been late. The peach tree is indigenous. “Of fruits,” says Laufer, “the West is chiefly indebted to China for the peach (Amygdalus persica) and the apricot (Prunus armeniaca). It is not impossible that these two gifts were transmitted by the silk-dealers, first to Iran (in the second or first century B.C.) and thence to Armenia, Greece, and Rome (in the first century A.D.).” In India the peach is called cinani (“Chinese fruit”). “There is no Sanskrit name for the tree (peach); nor does it play any rôle in the folk-lore of India, as it does in China.” … Persia “has only descriptive names for these fruits, the peach being termed saft alu (‘large plum’), the apricot, zard alu (‘yellow plum’).”16