Half summer
● Formerly known as Yang Hongyan, graduated from the Department of Biology of Yunnan University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and the vice chairman of the Kunming Writers Association. He has published novels such as "Lead Gray Dark Red", "The Flower of the Forgotten River", "Plane Wood Cafe", documentary biographical works "Seeing Flowers is a World View", a collection of natural history essays "Wild with Insects", children's books "Insect Whisperer", "Memoirs of Worms" and so on. After the publication of "Wild with Insects", it has won the second "China Ten Good Books of Nature Award, Natural Life Award", the fourth "Qijun Prose Award , Special Award", the 10th "Wu Dayu Science Popularization Book Award • Good Work Award", the first "'Beautiful China' Ecological Literature Award • Non-fiction Works Award", the 8th "Yunnan Top Ten Good Book Award", etc., and was included in the "2019 Sina Annual Good Book" list. Biodiversity conservation volunteers, for the two major plateau lakes in Yunnan, Fuxian Lake and Erhai, were frantically invaded by the alien species Fushou snail, which aroused the local government's great attention and eventually achieved good ecological and social benefits.
The Restrained Beauty of Desert Life (Outer Part)
Half summer
Walking the section from Jiuquan in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu to Dunhuang is to go to Dunhuang, which treasures ancient civilization, to feel the glory of Oriental Buddhist art, and did not think that in the journey of walking on the vast Gobi and desert, full of desert ecology. After looking closely at the desert plants, the restrained beauty they showed and the survival and evolution law of adapting to the harsh environment had a different shock and attraction to me.
There are two questions in my heart: many ancient civilizations of mankind originated in the desert areas of today, why? Deserts around the world are mostly rich sources of oil, gas and other minerals, why?
The answer seems simple: once upon a time there were primeval forests in these places, which fell and evolved into oil and gas. In the past, these places were not deserts, they were all oases, so the earliest people also lived here, so they will leave traces of ancient civilizations here.
Such an answer is tantamount to not saying. The two percussions may be meaningful to extend to the study of land desertification. In fact, the study of desertification in the world is receiving attention. There are many reasons, and the increase in population has prompted people to think about the possibility of developing deserts, but the reality is that overgrazing and deforestation have made many semi-arid areas appear desert landscapes, which has attracted the attention of ecologists.
Deserts are arid areas with little vegetation or lack of water, and the numerical indicator is that the average annual precipitation is below 250 mm. The lack of moisture in the desert ecological environment limits the growth of green plants, and the ecology of green plants directly or indirectly affects the reproduction of animals and microorganisms that rely on green plants for their livelihood. The type of desert life is determined by the main indicators of desert ecology, atmosphere (also including wind force and wind direction), soil composition, precipitation, temperature, etc.
The focus on desert life is to visit the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, return to the bus ferry station, and wait for my friend's car to pick me up and my companion from the city. Bored, I squatted down to observe the arid salinized surface plants. A word that the head of the Yunnan population said from time to time, "dry fur grass", was used to describe my tired mood and the grass on the ground.
I squatted down in a delusional attempt to photograph a lot of insects in these places that were different from Yunnan. The bugs were missing, and the camera zoomed in on low plants that I had never seen or known.
Most of their finely fragmented flower petals are membranous, the stems and leaves are almost all grayish, the leaves are often alienated into fleshy rods or spines to reduce the evaporation of water on the leaf surface, and some species have no leaves, and the gray stems are light rods. But the posture of those small flowers that are blooming or have withered in the small micro-horizon has an unusual beauty—the dry and transparent membranous petals, like mineral crystals that will not decay again, and I pity it. What about the beautiful plants that I photographed on the side of the road when I came earlier and had long silver shiny spiral cilia that looked like misty wool from a distance?
Too many questions urged me to do my homework quickly and figure it out. Back at night at the hotel, when there is WIFI, I call up those pictures to identify one by one, because it is impossible to classify them intuitively and superficially from the appearance, so I can only stupidly find its external features for detailed description, and the ultimatum is prefixed with "desert". Finding a needle in a haystack, God did not pay off, and found that most of them belonged to the white-stemmed salt grass and pig hair grass of the Quinoa family. They are also very different from the spinach and gray stripes of the quinoa plants that I know every day.
In the Hexi Corridor Dunhuang, Yangguan, Yulin Grottoes, Jiayuguan, Jinta, And Shangquan, looking from high to low, the largest treeSpring I saw was small poplar, poplar, elm, and then there was a red willow that was at most two or three meters high in my opinion.
More and more desert plants were photographed, and I asked my local friends that in addition to the large trees they could be named, the other fluffy bushes on the Gobi were all called puffy.
There is too little information about desert plants on the Internet, and the classification is even more chaotic because of the different folk names in various places, and many shrubs are not divided into species, and are generally called "tumbleweed". There was a strong wind in the desert, and the above ground part of the bushes was swept up by the wind and would roll on the ground.
Northwestern people name it with overlapping words, such as calling a snack "Croak", which sounds like a kind and deep affection for pets in it, and the lyrics of some Northwest folk songs also give me such an impression. Therefore, in the vague impression, in addition to being called "Fluffy", the grass has also heard of "Mustard" and "Shuttle". This time, I did a superficial classification study to find a reverse direction, since the locals call this name, Baidu input may be able to find clues, so back to their authentic vein, sure enough.
It is a sand-resistant, drought-resistant grass that not only protects against wind and sand fixation, but more importantly, the huge root system can shelter a precious medicinal plant, cistanche, which parasitizes its roots. Shuttle is also called Xiang Zi zi, back to Qing, Sha (Note: yin suo, tongsuo) grass family, its name is called shuttle from this, right? Large-scale planting of shuttles can not only play a role in treating the ecology, but also have considerable economic benefits.
White-stemmed saltwort, Quinoa family, is an annual herbaceous plant of the genus Halophyllum that grows on arid hillsides, sandy lands and river beaches. Its plants are burned to ashes by fire and are called puff ash. Locals use it instead of soap, washing powder to wash clothes and bedding during difficult times. Fluffy ash, then added to the flour to make a variety of northwest flavor noodles, Lanzhou ramen is necessary to add this substance, which reminds me of my mother in the Dragon Boat Festival, must be to use some grass stem burned ash in the water to soak glutinous rice, so that the grass ash soaked glutinous rice wrapped out of the rice dumplings are more soft and sweet and easy to digest, I think it is the same principle, all use its ash "alkali" - potassium ions, sodium ions formed by potassium ions, sodium hydroxide to neutralize the acid in the noodles and glutinous rice. White-stemmed salt grass is naturally also a forage plant for desert animals.
On the way to visit Yulin Cave that day, I saw someone herding camels in the red willow forest next to the road, stopping to approach the camels, they were eating a legume called camel thorns, and the ground was almost full of camel thorns, and they grew in clusters. Camel thorn in June and July flowering is a honey source plant, there are data show that camel thorn in the wind, their own needle prick will puncture their own leaves, leaf wound secretion of sweet juice, through the wind and sun, sweet juice concentrated into small pieces, edible, folk call it thorn sugar, boiling water can cure dysentery or vomiting diarrhea. Thorn sugar was a tribute in the Tang Dynasty, called thorn honey, the color is amber, seductive, precious. At that time, it was exported to all parts of the Central Plains along the Silk Road, and the Tang Dynasty border poet Cen San had a poem: "Guilin grapes are new to spit vines, Wucheng thorn honey is not edible", the poem indicates that when the grapes spit vines, the thorn honey of camel thorns has not yet formed particles. The ground part of the camel thorn grows short, but it has a huge root system that is deeply rooted in the ground. With such a large root system able to find water and absorb water over a large area, the small part of the ground effectively reduces water transpiration, so camel thorn is a famous mainstream plant in the desert.
Red willow is a gorgeous scenery in the desert ecological environment, and in late autumn in late October, it dyes the desert lonely dry ropes warmly. Red willow, also known as tamarind, belongs to the Tamarix family. In fact, I am not the first time to see it, in 1984 when I was studying in the Biology Department of Yunnan University, there was a tamarind tree on the west side of the campus in HuizeYuan, which is very precious in Yunnan, and its leaves are as thin as cypress, and the teacher who taught us taxonomy specifically mentioned it. For many years I've been around it, I've had to look at it, and I've never seen it blossom. This time I saw the flowers of the red willow, although it is not the peak flowering period of the population, but its spike-shaped inflorescence is also very beautiful. Red willows take root, blossom and bear fruit everywhere. The red willow roots under the sand have a deep root system like all desert plants, and the root tentacles can reach more than thirty meters deep and long.
Red willow has a high economic value, farmers love to use slender red willow branches to weave baskets, house mats for building houses, kang mats and other living objects.
At the foot of the Great Wall of Jiayuguan, I photographed a plant that also looks very similar to the white-stemmed salt grass and pig hair grass, but it produced two black fruits, which made me have doubts about it, and God helped me, and now I know that its name is Tangut White Thorn, which belongs to the Tribulus family.
In addition, the desert plants that use the wind to spread seeds are Asteraceae, Rosewood, buttercup family of gray leaf clematis is also common, the first spiral fog flocculent posture of the plant fruit species I saw is the gray leaf clematis, I saw it at the end of October, missed its flowering period in July and August, its thin fruit matures and explodes, the fine seeds with long silver gray cilia flutter in the wind, encounter shrubs, trees, house obstacles, gathered into an illusory fog-like blob of silver, to the earth a touch of dream, gray leaf clematis is a camel, Goats are good at food, and goats love their flowers and young leaves. Sedum plants with fleshy thick leaves and strong water retention ability are also more common.
It has been ten days since I returned to Yunnan from Gansu, and in my free time, I have been tirelessly doing the classification of desert plants that I have seen in the most superficial way, and I have been lamenting the beauty of nature's creation.
I want to sing my own song for the desert beings who are born low and thin, whose posture is blurred and faded, who shrink inconspicuously, but who are fighting against the harsh desert ecology.
At this moment, I prefer to borrow a shell and define my behavior with the title of the Book title of the Chilean writer Bolaño's "Wilderness Detective", and be a detective of the natural wilderness.
It was an interesting choice for me.
The Solution of Qianlan
Run to the northwest and head to Dunhuang. Pass through the endless Gobi and desert. Xi chu yang guan intended to be a sand pedestrian, but looked back. To Jiayuguan to look at the Great Wall, in the earth and brick city light and shadow through, the city wall is far away, there is a little intuitive feeling of the outside of the Sai.
Then from the Yulin Grottoes in western Gansu to the Tianshui Maiji Mountain in the Qinling Mountains in eastern Gansu. Some scenes pass by and the wind blows away, some things are unclear and unrecognizable, and some things must be slowly filtered and precipitated...
The northwest line was full of thoughts, and finally a messy knot was tied. To untie this knot, I don't know where to start.
In ancient times, there was a tool called 觿 (Note: Yinxi), which was actually a horn cone, and in ancient times people wore it because they used it to untie the knots tied by the rope, and its head was thick and thick, shaped like the horns of cattle and sheep. This is often bony jade, and it means adult.
I now imagine wearing a small tool like this to untie all kinds of knots. Many years ago, I bought an ink jade pendant from a Taiwanese jeweler, which was in its overall shape, but there was a small curved hook, and the Taiwanese jade merchant told me that it was used by women to unbutton in the old days. Association, this untied knot of the knot, suddenly understands that the function of the hook should be the same as this thing, people often use it, it evolves into an ornament.
In the clouds and fog, the title of my article seems to be about a plant called "Qianlan", what is this mess of east and west pulling?
Flashback, let it hang, let's read it together first--"Poetry Classic, Guofeng" "Wei Feng" Of Qilan Chapter——
芄 (Note: 音丸) Lan Zhizhi, Tong Zi Pei (Note: Yin Xi). Although it is admired, I don't know. It is grumpy and throbbing.
Leaf of Qianlan, Boy Peilan (Note: Phonsha). Although Pei Ling, can not be my armor. It is grumpy and throbbing.
Most of the poets believe that this is a poem written by a female poet, mocking a teenager who suddenly wears adult costumes (untie the rope and knot sharpener) and 韘 (the wrench worn on the thumb when shooting arrows, used to hook the string, to protect the hand), and the behavior is still childish and ignorant, neither knowing the self, nor knowing how to get along with others, satirizing the teenager pretending to be old and holding heavy but powerless, and posing a solemn and solemn appearance on the outside but cannot hide the childish tension in the heart. The poet's last sentence, "Hanging with throbbing," wrote out the teenager's throbbing and uneasy, trembling body, unsettled, unsettled appearance. The juvenile pretends to be mature and stable through the details of the depiction of the ornament, implicitly alluding to the immaturity of the young man's mind, and some people think that this is the poet's satire of the king at that time, and I think, this extension is a bit reluctant, see how good it is for a love poem, a woman who has known the roots of her original relationship since childhood, suddenly indifference and alienation from her, she is extremely ironic, a poem less than fifty words, appropriate and sincere, carefully chewed, this poem also contains her delicate mentality, Although the whole poem is a mockery of the teenager who pretends to be old and suddenly ignores people, she perceives that she still has a long love for him in her heart in the resentment of her whole poem.
Why did the poet use the plant "Qianlan" to say things? That's why I'm going to untie this knot for you today.
One evening in the autumn of October, I was in Yangguan of Wang Weishi's "West Out of Yangguan without Cause", and when I roamed there, I saw this vine with heart-shaped leaves, which climbed on the red willow branches and leaves, and a string of yellowed heart-shaped leaves backed by the deep blue sky of the Great Northwest, which was conspicuous. Its angular pods ripened and bloomed in a dry, exploding peel, and the tiny seeds were draped with silver cilia, and the wind flew up and flew into the distance.
What kind of plant is it? I had never seen it before. When I returned to the hotel in the evening to do my homework on the intermittent public WIFI network, I found out in a haystack that it might be a vine called croissant, belonging to the family Radix.
The journey was hurried, and the last stop of the Gansu Hexi Corridor across the west and east reached Lanzhou, and the writer Han Songluo entertained us, and talked about the beauty of desert life during the banquet. He pointed to this and said, this is called croissant, he said it would secrete a liquid like milk pulp, and he had sucked that slurry when he was a child. Mr. Han's hometown is deep in the Qilian Mountains, and he should be familiar with native plants. The topic did not continue.
At the end of the Trip to Gansu, I flew to Chengdu, the country of Tianfu, during which I received a map of the post-80 writer Zheng Xiaodonkey WeChat to ask for the name of a plant, which at first glance was a heart-shaped leaf vine with two long thorny pods, and I could not see the whole picture. Hurriedly glanced at him, did not recognize, and returned to him: after returning to Yunnan in two days, check and tell him.
In the afternoon, after making up for a good night's sleep, the little donkey came knocking on my head. The disk out of my data plus the computer, and then into a needle in a haystack, the picture sent by the donkey I stared at and looked at, no clue. Picked up a magazine and turned it over, the heart is still in the puzzle network, suddenly, the inspiration suddenly appeared, remember, a few years ago at the agricultural fair bought a foreign flower called Tang Mian, Tang Mian rewarded not the leaves but its fruit, its fruit is a bit similar to the fruit of the plant in the little donkey's question, look back, the mystery was revealed.
The little donkey asked me if my plant was called Radix, a plant of the Family Radix, a heart-shaped leaf, a herbaceous vine. There are too many folk names: croissant milk, milk pulp vine, mother-in-law needle kit, sparrow scoop, etc., and then go back, call out the "croissant grass" I photographed in Yangguan, they are the same family of plants, this is really a vine to touch the melon, crooked, put a whole digging of the traits of a plant of the lotus family, and learned that the kind of plant photographed in Yangguan is called Qianlan, and there is a "Qianlan" chapter in the Book of Poetry, using the leaves and fruits of this plant to say things. This is what is mentioned above - the Weifeng Qianlan chapter of the "Book of Poetry and National Style", the long pod silique fruit of the pod is shaped like the "觽" worn by adults in ancient times, and the female poet of ancient times is touching the scenery.
After leaving Gansu and arriving in Chengdu, one night, I wandered with friends to Wenshu Monastery and bought Mr. Li's book "Poetry Scene" in the scattered flower bookstore where the name of the old literati Liushahe inscribed the name of the bookstore. A few years ago, I wrote a column for the supplement of Chengdu Daily, and on the front page of the supplement, there was a modern version of Mr. Liushahe's modern version of the text, which was very short and beautiful. Chengdu is the place where I have ever combined life and art. The old gentleman said in the preface that the ancients wrote poems only after birth, and modern people did not write poems, they wanted to write, and he took the "scenes" in the "Book of Poetry" to round up and talk about them.
Unfortunately, I later read that book, and the chapter "Qianlan" was not picked up by Mr. Quicksand River to talk about things in this book.
Northwestbound, with companions, but still lonely and sad, and of course poetic. At Yangguan, at dusk, looking at the former Yangguan Avenue, looking at my long shadow on the sand, suddenly bursting into tears, when the sky collapsed, and from then on the dust disappeared... Suddenly remembering the classic biographical movie "Lawrence of Arabia", the desert ranger Lawrence flew out of the motorcycle in the first shot of the movie and died, and also jumped out of the lament of "the maid of the Han Palace wept darkly, and the sand walkers returned to their hands", since then there is really no one who has never come after the ancients...
Head northwest, and use the "觽" like the pod to untie the knots of the chaotic mind.
...... Not finished
directory
2022-2 "October"
novelette
Other people's room/005 bells for truth
Small bean bag of jianghu /027 Gu Yu
Phoenix Dance/067 Cheng Qing
Hunting/128 Meng Xiaoshu
Golden Snowflakes of the Earthly Floating /145 Suranduo
short story
Wedding ceremony/059 Li Chao
Anniversary/163 Tao Liqun
Novel Shinkansen
Go to Haikou (short story)/196 Ding Xiaoning
Moonlight (short story)/206 Ding Xiaoning
Face and Self (Creative Talk)/213 Ding Xiaoning
Debut is Hope (Commentary)/215 Meng Fanhua
Prose
Down from Lü Liang/108 Li Jingze
Notes on the Matter of Extras/173 Leaf Rhymes
Discourse with the Long River/187 Zhang Yang Sheep
The things of the earth
The Introverted Beauty of Desert Life (Part III)/113 Half Summer
Wilderness Apocalypse/121 Liu Dongli
Read and be read
Divine Comedy: Divine Comedy/051 Liu Wenfei
Organ lineage
That lost face/092 Jing Wendong
Poetry
Safari/217 River away
Morning bird with sunflower/220 field grass
Kunlun and others/223 Guo Jianqiang
Ten Shadows on Earth/226 Zhou Qingrong
Spring, now it's your turn to express/230 Zhang Hongbo
Eucalyptus and river/232 Pak Ding An
New Era: Yuantouzhu Series/234 Zong Renfa Pang Yuliang Zhang Hongbo Yubang Sentinel Cheng Xiuhu Lu Wenli Zhonghai Zhang Xiaoxue Gong Xuan Ren Bai Wang Mingfa Wang Xuexin
Arts
Cover burning Qiu Dandan
Feng II Parent-child game Qiu Dandan
Seal three upstairs Qiu Dandan
Cover design Zhao Pingyu
Title inscription Cui Manli
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