Kamech

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Kamech arabice tubera.


Apparatus:

Whole entry om. ef
Kamech ABC p | Kameh j


Translation:

Kamech is Arabic for Latin tubera {"truffles"}.


Commentary:

Kamech:
Wehr (1976): ﻛﻢﺀ /kamʔ/, pl. ﺍﻛﻤﺆ /akmuʔ/; ﻛﻤﺄﺓ /kamʔa/ (pl.) "truffles".
Siggel (1950: 64): ﻛﻤﺎﺓ /kamāt/, ﻛﻤﺄﺓ /kamʔa/ Tubera terrae, Terfeziattrüffel {i.e. Terfezia, "desert truffles"}. Cf also Lane (1984: 2629) s.v. ﻛﻢﺀ /kamʔ/.
*Kameth is misread as Kamech – 't' misread as 'c' -, an extremely common misreading that must have occurred early on since all witnesses that have the entry - except possibly j - show it in the corrupted form. Simon is transcribing the form ﻛﻤﺎﺓ /kamāt/.


There is a chapter on tubera in [Goehl] Avicenna's Canon, book II, Capitulum 698. De tuberibus {annotation: kema}. See also Lyons edition (1522: 125) [[1]].
In the Arabic original this can be found in book II, p. 194 ﻛﻤﺎﻩ /kamʔa/ [[2]].

Cf. also Siggel (1950: 23): ﺗﺮﻓﺎﺱ /tarfās/ Terfezia-Trüffel {i.e. Terfezia, "desert truffles"}.


Botanical identification:

Terfezia mushrooms are a genus of truffle-like fungi, often called "desert truffles". They occur in arid and semi-arid habitats with a distribution from Spain, North Africa, Saudi-Arabia, Irak to the Balkans and Hungary. In the Arabic-speaking countries and Southern Spain they are considered to be excellent edible mushrooms. [[3]], [[4]].


WilfGunther 16/01/2014


See also: Quama


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