Quanfang beizu 全芳備祖

Quanfang beizu 全芳備祖 is China's oldest book on plants. It was written during the Southern Song period 南宋 (1127-1279) by Chen Jingyi 陳景沂 (b. c. 1201), actual name Yong 詠 (Jingyi was his courtesy name), style Feitun 肥遯, Feidun 肥遁 or Yuyizi 愚一子, from Tiantai 天臺 (today in Zhejiang). The book was finished around 1253.

The text of 58 juan length is divided into a First (Qianji 前集) and a Second Collection (Houji 後集). The first part includes 27 chapters just on flowers (Huabu 花部), while the second part presents a separate chapter in each of the 31 fascicles, reaching from fruits (ch. 1-9) to various herbs (ch. 10-11) and grasses (ch. 12-13), trees (ch. 14-19) and economic plants like mulberry (ch. 20-22), legumes (ch. 23-27), or medical herbs (ch, 28-31). The whole book provides information for no less than 307 plants, quoting from ancient literature.

The characteristic point of the book is that for each different plant, three "evidential points" (zu 祖) are provided, namely "evidence of facts" (shishi zu 事實祖) providing basic knowledge as transmitted, second, "lyrical evidence" (fuyong zu 賦詠祖) in the shape of poetry or verses, and third, "ballad evidence" (yuefu zu 樂府祖), i.e. whole poems. As to poems, the Quanfang beizu preserves quite a few lyric works from Yan Shu 晏殊 (991-1055), Ding Wei 丁謂 (966-1037) or Jia Sidao 賈似道 (1213-1275) which are otherwise not transmitted.

Unfortunately, only fragments of the text survive in China, but the book served as a blueprint for Wang Xiangjin's 王象晉 Qunfangpu 群芳譜 from the Ming period (1561-1653). A manuscript version, once onwed by the Jiguge Library 汲古閣 of the Mao family 毛氏, is held by the Shanghai Cishu Press 上海辭書出版社. A fragmentary Japanese edition of the Imperial Library (Kōku Zusho Ryōsho 皇宮圖書寮所) was reprinted in 1982 by the Zhongguo Nongye Press 中國農業出版, as part of the series Zhongguo nongye zhenben congkan 中國農業珍本叢刊. For this edition, the missing parts were supplemented by a manuscript version owned by the Institute for the History of Agriculture of Huanan Agricultural University (Huanan Nongye Daxue Nongshi Yanjiushi 華南農業大學農史研究室). The fragments are also found in the imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書.