[Ads-l] kwai fah —1936

[Barretts Mail]

The other day, I spoke with a Hakka-American on Maui who grew up in Kula, which had a Chinese community by the 1880s or so.

He told me about kwai fah, a plant whose blossoms are used in tea for their pleasant aroma. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanthus_fragrans <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmanthus_fragrans>) has an article on _Osmanthus fragrans_, giving a variety of names, including sweet osmanthus, sweet olive, tea olive, fragrant olive, and 桂花 (Cantonese Yale: gwai fā). Wiktionary gives “gwai3” and “faa1” for the Cantonese reading; there is no Hakka reading for the first, but the second character is “fâ”.

The online Oxford Dictionaries have “Osmanthus” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/osmanthus <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/osmanthus>), saying that the “earliest use found in John Lindley (1799–1865)” but makes no mention of the genus or alternate names.

The book “Tropical Shrubs” by Horace F. Clay and Jeams C. Hubbard has an entry (http://bit.ly/2pBjosz <http://bit.ly/2pBjosz>):
_Osmanthus frangrans_
Kwai-fah, Usugi-mokusei-, Sweet Olive

and says: “Kwai-fah is one of the plant’s Chinese names and the most commonly used in Hawaiʻi.”

I did not search too hard, but found no webpage describing how long it has been in use. A kigo site (http://kigosai.sub.jp/kigo500b/21.html <http://kigosai.sub.jp/kigo500b/21.html>) says that 木犀 (mokusei), which is the Japanese name, is a kigo, so it seems likely that the plant has been in use for hundreds of years.

The earliest instance I found on Google Books was 1936 (copyright page snippet found) in "The Tropical Garden: Its Design, Horticulture, and Plant Materials” by Loraine E. Kuck and Richard C. Tongg (http://bit.ly/2p67lSB <http://bit.ly/2p67lSB>). In the snippet, the words “kwai fah” can just be made out, though it can’t be seen whether there’s a hyphen.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA




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