Talk:Couling s.n., Qingzhou (by 1895)

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Discussion for: Couling s.n., Qingzhou (by 1895) • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Couling s.n., Qingzhou (by 1895) is an Accession — the atomic unit of documentation representing a specific collection event. All scientific data lives here.

Data verification

Check the main page for documentation tier status. Discuss coordinate accuracy, photo quality, or collection details here.

Discussion

Evidentiary scope

The label places a cannabis plant growing in dry ground in Yidu county, Shandong, before 1895, and the slip gives the name Ma. It does not say whether the plant was cultivated, or record a variety or a use; the slip's note on weaving explains the word Ma, not this plant. The accession is classified Other and no conservation priority is assigned.

Label reading

Read from Edinburgh's IIIF image (4096 pixels high).

• Slip (red ink): Ma / (generic name of all plants in China the skin of which is used for weaving into cloth etc.
• Second slip (the same red ink): 3. Nothing on the sheet says whether it is a collector's number, so the title takes s.n. and the present-day name of the place, Qingzhou.
• Edinburgh label (handwritten on the printed heading HERB. HORT. REG. BOT. EDIN.): Cannabis sativa Linn / I tu hsien, Ching Chou fu, / Shantung. recd 1895. / Coll. S. Couling. Below it: Grows in dry ground.

Georeferencing

No coordinate is asserted. I tu hsien, Ching Chou fu is Yidu county in the prefecture of Qingzhou. Yidu County was abolished in 1986 and its area is the county-level city of Qingzhou (Wikidata Q1360781; English Wikipedia, Qingzhou). A county gives no collection point. The province field takes Shandong.

Editorial treatment

Date. No collecting date is on the sheet. Recd 1895 dates the arrival of the sheet at Edinburgh, so no date is stored and the title takes (by 1895).

Collector. The collector field keeps the label's S. Couling. Samuel Couling (1859–1922), an English Baptist missionary, was sent to Shandong in 1884 and taught at Qingzhou (Chinese Wikipedia; Wikidata Q13439029). The place and years fit the label, and the prose links that form. No source read records him collecting plants.

Local name. The local name field takes Ma from the slip.

Source discrepancies

• Edinburgh's catalogue gives no collector, place, date or country for the sheet (filed Inner China, Korea and Taiwan). Everything on this page beyond the plant's name comes from the label.

Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 05:28, 10 October 2026 (+07)