Talk:Pelliot 440 (1908)
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Evidentiary scope
The field label records Chanvre cultivé (cultivated hemp) on 13 July 1908, and the museum label places the gathering at Si-Ning-Fou, at 2,400 m. It gives no use and no local name. Drug-type cannabis from different regions began to be cross-bred, and its seed carried into old growing areas, in the 1970s (McPartland and Small 2020, pp. 84–85), so a hybrid origin is not considered for a sheet gathered in 1908. The accession is classified Landrace, by inference from the label. The sheet does not show what became of the crop or whether its seed survives, and no conservation priority is assigned.
Label reading
Read from GBIF's cached copy of the holder's image (2,000 pixels wide).
- Field label (printed form, completed by hand): Muséum d'histoire naturelle, PELLIOT & Louis VAILLANT (Asie centrale) / N° 440 / Date 13 Juillet 08 / Localité {the line holds} Chanvre cultivé.
- Museum label. HERB. MUS. PARIS. / Cannabis sativa L. / 940 13 juil 08 Si-Ning-Fou (2400) / Asie Centrale, Mission Pelliot-Vaillant (1906–8) / Reçu en fév. 1909.
- The number. On the field label the first figure has a pointed head and no closed loop, unlike the writer's 9 on the museum label; it was read as 4 in two readings, with 1 or 9 possible. On the museum label the first figure is a clear 9, with a closed loop and a tail: 940. The museum's catalogue also gives 940. The page takes the field label's 440, the collector's own form, of which the museum label is a copy.
- The year on the field label ends in a figure read as 8 in one reading and, with low confidence, as 9 in the other; the museum label's 08 is clear, and 1908 is stored.
Georeferencing
The point 36.62, 101.78 is the city of Xining, OpenStreetMap node 244082386 (36.61725, 101.77616); the Wikidata item for Xining (Q69060) carries Sining-fu and Hsi-ning-fu among its aliases. SRTM gives 2,253 m at Wikidata's point for the city, 147 m below the label's 2,400 m, which fits ground on the slopes round the city. The point places the gathering at the city the label names. Basis: settlement point. Uncertainty: about 10 km.
Editorial treatment
Classification. Chanvre cultivé on the locality line, with the town on the museum label, records a crop at the named place.
Collectors. The field label names both Pelliot and Vaillant. In July 1908, after the mission's stay at Dunhuang, Vaillant travelled to Xining alone (French Wikipedia), so the gathering is probably his. Paul Pelliot (1878–1945), the sinologist, led the mission; Louis Vaillant (1876–1963), an army doctor, was its physician, topographer and naturalist (English and French Wikipedia; Harvard botanist index). He is not the Paris museum zoologist Léon Vaillant (1834–1914). The mission left Paris on 17 June 1906 and reached Kashgar at the end of August 1906 (English Wikipedia). The collector field takes the first name on the label, Pelliot; the prose links both men.
Source discrepancies
- The catalogue reads the place as Si Ning Fon; the museum label reads Si-Ning-Fou.
- The field label gives the number as 440; the museum label and the catalogue give 940.
Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 14:28, 13 October 2026 (+07)