FISH ii.SALT WATER FISHES This article deals mainly with the most economically important or otherwise remarkable fishes (except the caviar-yielding…

FIG (anjīr), the “fruit” of several species and subspecies of Ficus L. (fam. Moraceae) in the geobotanical area covered by…

FENNEL (rāzīāna

FELFEL (arabicized from archaic Pers. pelpel < Skt. pippalī, which designated both the vine and the berries of Piper longum...

FĀḴTA, an obsolete Persian name (older *fāḵtak/g;cf. the pl. fāḵtagān; arabicized as fāḵeta, pl. fawāḵet; see also Schapka, no. 577,…

ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, PERSIAN Pre-modern. In Persia, as in other Islamicized lands, the notion of an encyclopaedia developed out of the “need…

ELM, any of several species of hardy deciduous ornamental or forest trees of the genus Ulmus L. (fam. Ulmaceae), typically…

EBN AL-BAYṬĀR, ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ʿABD-ALLĀH b. Aḥmad (not Aḥmad-al-Dīn as in EI ² III, p. 737), Andalusian botanist and…

DUCK (moṟḡābī < moṟḡ-e ābī “aquatic fowl” or ordak < Turk. ördäk), technically any species of the family Anatidae but...

ḎORRAT, maize or (Indian) corn, Zea mays L. (fam. Gramineae), with many varieties and hybrids (see Ṭabāṭabāʾī, pp. 140-62). Terminology….

DILL (ševed, ševīd, šebet, etc.), Anethum graveolens L. (fam. Umbellifera), an herb widely cultivated in Persia. The main use of…

DERAḴT (Mid. Pers. draxt), tree, shrub. Two other words for “tree” occur in Pahlavi literature: wan (Av. vanā-, Pashto wana,…

DAVĀL-PĀ(Y), or dovāl-pā (colloq. dūāl-pā;Kurdish dolpā; Kermānī dohol-pā), an imaginary evil anthropoid creature characterized by flexible legs (pā) resembling leather…

DATE PALM (deraḵt-e ḵormā, naḵl; Phoenix dactylifera L., fam. Palmaceae), dioecious tree of great economic and cultural importance in Persia…

DĀRČĪNĪ (i.e., dār-e čīnī, lit., “Chinese tree/wood,” < Mid. Pers. *dār ī čēnīg; cf. Arm. lw. daričenik; Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik,...

CYPRESS (sarv), Cupressus (Tourn.) L. The genus Cupressus is represented in Persia by one spe­cies (sempervirens L.), with three varieties:…

CUMIN (Pers. zīra, Ar. kammūn; Cuminum cyminum L.), an umbelliferous plant of the Old World and its aromatic seeds. In…

CUCUMBER, Cucumis sativus L. (of the family Cucurbitaceae), in Persia generally called ḵīār (with occasional slight variants), a term that…

CROW, a bird of the family Corvidae, represented in Persia and Afghanistan by six genera (Garrulus, Pica, Nucifraga, Podoces, Pyrrhocorax,…

CROCUS, generic name of a large number of hardy bulbous flowering plants of the family Iridaceae. Per Wendelbo and Brian…

CRANE (kolang < Mid. Pers. kulang; Orm. and Par. kolang; Morgenstierne, pp. 266, 398; cf. Kurmanji Kurdish [ḡāz] qoleng, qoreng,...

CORNELIAN CHERRY, the male cornel tree, a dogwood shrub with edible berries. Three species of cornel (genus Cornus L., fam….

CORIANDER, Coriandrum sativum L. (Mid. Pers. k/gišnīz, NPers. gešnīz, Kurd. kešneš, Taj. kašnīj/z, Bal. kīnīč and gēnīč, Rīšahri, gešnī, Azeri…

CORAL, the skeletal deposit of marine polyps, often treated as a gem material. In classical Persian it was called bossad…

COCONUT (nārgīl < Mid. Pers. anārgēl < Skt. nārīkel/ra; cf. Hindi and Urdu nāriyal “coconut”), the fruit of the palm...

CITRUS FRUITS (Pers. morakkabāt). As far as Persia is concerned, only the citrus trees and fruits of the genus Citrus…

ČENĀR, the “Oriental plane (tree),” Platanus orientalis L. (fam. Platanaceae). This species of plane is indigenous from southeastern Europe to…

CAVIAR, ḵāvīar in Persian, the processed non-fertilized roe of sturgeons (q.v.) and some other large fishes, highly valued as a…

CASSIA, a genus of shrubs and trees of the family Leguminosae (or Caesalpiniaceae in some classifications). This article deals only…

CARROT, the taproot of Daucus L. subspp., etc. (family Umbelliferae), traditionally called gazar (arabicized as jazar) or zardak (lit. “the…

CARDAMOM, hel in modern Persian (earlier hīl; arabicized as hāl; from Skt. elā), the aromatic seeds of several plants of…

CAMPHOR (NPers. kāfūr; Mid. Pers. kāpūr, perhaps directly from Malay kāpūr; but cf. Sogd. kpwr “camphor” < Prakrit kappūra-, Sims-Williams,...

CAMEL THORN (Alhagi Adans. spp.), common name for wild thorny suffrutescent plants of the Papilionaceae family, called šotor-ḵār and ḵār-e…

ČAKĀVAK (Mid. Pers. čakōk). i: The lark. ii: A melody in Persian music. i: The Lark Of the nineteen species…

CABBAGE (Pers. kalam) Brassica oleracea L. vars. The word kalam (and its obsolete variant karam; see below) seems to be…

BŪTĪMĀR, a semilegendary aquatic bird, also called ḡamḵᵛorak (lit. “the little griever”) according to some lexicographers, usually equated with Ar….

BUSTARD, any of a family (Otididae) of game birds of which three species, generally called hūbar(r)a in contemporary Persian, occur…

BŪQALAMŪN (in verse also būqalmūn), short for abūqalamūn, arabicized from Gk. hupokálamon (see Dozy, I, pp. 6-7, s.v. abūqalamūn), term…

BŪF, owl, commonly called joḡd. Of the thirteen species of Strigiformes reported by Hüe and Étchécopar (pp. 401-19) for the…

BOXTREE, Buxus L. spp., šemšād, common name for numerous species of evergreen shrubs or trees of the family Buxaceae. The…

BOTANICAL STUDIES ON IRAN i. The Greco-Islamic tradition. ii. The Western tradition. iii. Persian Studies in the Western tradition.  …

BOLBOL “nightingale” i. The bird. ii. In Persian literature.   i. The Bird The term bolbol is applied to at…

BIRCH. The genus Betula L. in Iran has been variously identified as B. alba L. (e.g., Sāʿī, I, p. 187;…

BĪD (also deraḵt-e bīd or bīd-bon), common desig­nation in modern Persian for the genus Salix L., willow. i. The word….

BELDERČĪN (quail, Coturnix coturnix L.; fam. Phasianidae). The wide distribution of the quail in the Near and Middle East (see…

BEH “quince, Cydonia” i. The word. ii. The tree. iii. Culinary uses of the fruit. i. The Word Beh, from…

BEECH, Fagus L. The species found in Iran was previously presented as the same as the common European beech, F….

BEET, Beta vulgaris L., commonly called čoḡondar in Persian (variant forms found in some older texts: čokondar/čogondar, čondar; cf. Māzandarānī…

BEAVER, Castor fiber L., semiaquatic mammalian rodent, in Persian commonly called sag-e ābī (lit. “aquatic dog”), no longer extant in…

BEANS. This term is used in English in a wide sense to designate several plants (and their seeds) of different…

BĀZDĀRĪ (or bāzyārī, lit. “bāz keeping,” now an obsolete Persian term), falconry, as a practical art and as a sport….

FISH iii. IN PRE-ISLAMIC PERSIAN LORE The Bundahišn (q.v.) contains interesting pseudo-scientific, mythical, and sometimes inconsistent information about fishes. The…

JORJĀNI, ZAYN-AL-DIN ESMĀʿIL b. Ḥasan, better known as Sayyed Esmāʿil Jorjāni (b. Gorgān, 1043-44?; d. Marv, 1136-37), physician who served…

GOLPAR, any of several perennial aromatic herbaceous plants of the genus Heracleum L. (fam. Umbelliferae) growing wild in humid alpine…

GOLĀB (< gol-āb; Arabicized as jol[l]āb), rose water, a distillate (ʿaraq) obtained chiefly from the gol-e moḥammadi (see GOL), the...

GOL (gul), rose (Rosa L. spp.) and, by extension, flower, bloom, blossom.   ROSES I. Etymology. Mid. Pers. gul (<...

FRUIT, mīva (Mid. Pers. mēwag). This article presents mainly some general points and statistics about fruits in Persia-past and present;…

JUJUBE, ʿonnāb (Ar.; usually prnounced annāb in Pers.), the edible drupe of the jujube tree Ziziphus jujuba Miller (= Z….

RYE (čāvdār), Secale cereale L. (fam. Gramineae). The Persian name is probably of Turkish origin. Schlimmer (1874) has recorded the…

BASIL, Ocimum L. ssp. (fam. Labiatae), now commonly called rayḥān in Persian, an aromatic plant. The word basil goes back…