Chen Renyu’s Junpu: An Annotated Translation with Discussion on China’s Earliest Edible Mushroom Manual

Though not widely acknowledged in the present era, the Junpu《菌譜》(“Materia Mycologica”, 1245), also known as the Xiangxunpu 《香蕈譜》(“Manual of Fragrant Fungi”), is a historical Chinese mycological monograph authored in the late Southern Song (1127-1279) by scholar-official Chen Renyu 陳仁玉 (b. 1212), significant for its dual status as not only the earliest manual of edible mushrooms recorded from China, but also indeed the oldest practical treatise on fungi known from anywhere in the world. Despite the considerable limitations of the Junpu in terms of its actual informational scope – comprising fewer than nine hundred characters in total, with contents featuring only a brief synoptic preface followed by summary descriptions for a small number of mushrooms found from the author’s native county, and entirely devoid of illustrations – Chen Renyu’s pioneering work on fungi is nevertheless notable for having achieved a remarkable degree of influence on the subsequent development of more comprehenesive mycological literatures both in China and elsewhere in East Asia.

Thus, with the primary goal of establishing greater awareness of Chen Renyu’s Junpu as China’s archetypal mycological monograph, this thesis first proceeds with a brief biography on the life and activities of Chen Renyu, followed by a select overview of the complex contents of his original work, thereby presenting a conceptual basis for interpreting the text itself. The next section of the paper then presents readers with a new comprehensive English-language translation of the entire Junpu treatise. This translation is supplemented by extensive annotations providing commentary on the material covered therein, with particular attention being given to possible identites of the mushrooms featured in the work as well as the numerous linkages between pre-Song Chinese ethnomycological records and contemporary Song mushroom culture revealed by its contents. Following the annotated translation, the third section of the thesis engages in a brief discussion on the textual history of the Junpu and its considerable influence on later Chinese and Japanese mycological monographs. Finally, the paper concludes with an assessment of the Junpu’s unique significance to the overlapping fields of Chinese, East Asian, and global ethnomycological research, as well as a brief closing statement regarding its relevance both to present-day mushroom cultures around the world and to the future trajectory of human relations with fungi at a universal level.