Six poems of qionghua in late spring: The east wind is full of trees, and this flower is unique in the world
Late Tang Dynasty Yangzhou is famous for its Qionghua, which originated from a tree with white flowers in late spring in the Houtu Temple of Yangzhou.
The tree is very strong and huge, in late spring, the flowers bloom like snow, the flowers and snow press down the branches, magnificent, the flowers are umbrella-shaped clusters of nine butterfly-like flowers, the flowers bloom like nine snow-white butterflies, the fragrance is clear. It is surprising that there are such beautiful flowers and trees in late spring.
Wu Rong of the late Tang Dynasty was a native of Zhejiang, not far from Jiangsu, and it was very normal to travel to Yangzhou. At this time, the political situation of the late Tang Dynasty was turbulent, and it was inevitable that there was a sense of turmoil in the world, so he went to Yangzhou, one was to send nostalgia, the other was to hang the ancients, and the mood was wandering.
"Scratching the head of the Sui causeway, the sunset is oblique, and there are no more willows to hide crows."
The shore is past the dragon ship, and the bottom of the river is now walking calves.
He once laughed at Chen Jiage Yushu, but then the Lord looked at Qionghua.
The four parties are the day of no worries, who believe that Liyang has an ancient family. Late Tang Dynasty · Wu Rong's "Sui Causeway"
At this time, there was already a legend in Yangzhou that the jade tree backyard flower sung in the court of The Lord of Chen Hou in the past years was the Qionghua, and the Sui Emperor went down to Yangzhou to see the Qionghua of Yangzhou. However, this is all ancillary. Because Yangzhou is not the whole city Qionghua, but the land temple has, because the beauty is so lush and huge.
When Wu Rong came to Yangzhou, he had the meaning of ridiculing his own life and the times.
In the late spring, the Sui Causeway in Yangzhou, because of a certain section of diversion, exposed the bottom of the river, known as the ancient Sui Causeway, in fact, only the desolate riverbed is left in the sunset, there is no willow at all, and there are ox carts on the riverbed.
People who know the ancients here say that there was once a huge dragon boat of the Sui Emperor passing by, but now it is deserted.
The Sui Emperor once ridiculed the Later Emperor Chao Yushu, but he himself ran to Yangzhou, infatuated with Qionghua, and caused the fall of the country.
And now I also come to Yangzhou to relax, and I also go to see the Qionghua in Yangzhou.
This is the era when the world is no longer there, who can believe in the peace and prosperity that once existed?
Then Wu Rong's poem can prove that in the late Tang Dynasty, there were Qionghua in Yangzhou. And it is the Qionghua of the Houtu Temple, which was already well-known at that time.
"Jingyang Bell Moving Palace Warbler Turn, Dew Cool Golden Temple."
Gently blowing up the qiong flowers, jade leaves like scissors.
Late to the high pavilion, bead curtain rolls.
See a thousand pieces of incense, repair moths slow face to accompany the carving,
New feast in the backyard. "Five Dynasties to the Beginning of the Song Dynasty · Sun Guangxian's backyard flowers one
This is Sun Guangxian, a minister from the Five Dynasties to the early Song Dynasty, who wrote "Backyard Flowers", and his travels were quite numerous, which is the only word that links Li Hou's main backyard Yushu with Qionghua, proving that he has seen Qionghua.
In the morning of late spring, there was still dew, but the bells of the court sounded, the morning wind blew, and the flowers bloomed, and the white buds were like scissors. In the evening, upstairs, enjoy the pieces of Qionghua flowers blowing down by the spring breeze, and accompany the emperor to sing and dance banquets.
Then Sun Guangxian must have known that Qionghua was the flower of late spring, and he connected the Qionghua of Yangzhou to the court of Lord Chen Hou.
Sun Guangxian and Wang Yuwei were contemporaries, and what he could see was the Qionghua of yangzhou Houtu Temple, which produced historical associations.
As for whether Lord Chen Hou and the Sui Emperor really saw Qionghua? This is doubtful.
"Whoever moves the Qi tree under the fairy country, February light ice August frost."
If Princess Shouyang is there, she should be ashamed to see the plum makeup. Northern Song Dynasty · Wang Yuwei's "Qionghua Poems of the Later Earth Temple, Part II"
"Spring ice is thinly pressed branches, and the fragrance is Yue'e.
Suddenly like the bottom of the deep stream in the summer, the old pine is white and snow-white. Northern Song Dynasty · Wang Yuwei's "Qionghua Poems of the Later Earth Temple"
The poet notes to himself: Yangzhou Houtu Temple has a flower branch, white and lovely, and its tree is large and flowery, I don't know what wood is, commonly known as Qionghua Cloud. Because of the poetry to form its state.
The Northern Song Dynasty King Yu Wei 42 Yangzhou Zhi County, the local governor, can not not know the local customs, heard of the Houtu Temple Qionghua, but when you go to see, or shocked.
This is the jade tree that was planted by whoever came from the sky, like the thin ice of February, the frost of August, if princess Shouyang was here, she must have felt that the qionghua was whiter and more beautiful than the plum blossom, and the pieces fell on her body.
Like the spring crystal ice and snow pressed on the tree, a tree fragrance, see the Qionghua, as if entering the deep valley in the summer, the pine trees are covered with white snow, and the Qionghua is green leaves and white snow, swaying, more cool and moving.
Wang Yuwei had never seen this kind of flower, and said that it was a Qiong flower, so before he became the governor of Yangzhou and between them, there were no other places, and Yangzhou City was such a place.
Isn't Yangzhou the city of Qionghua? Why is Qionghua not found in the street? Only this one?
And looking at the Qionghua here at the age of Wang Yuwei, the Qionghua has a history of at least a few decades, and if the Qionghua seen by Wu Rong in the Tang Dynasty is the same, this Qionghua is at least more than a hundred years old, no wonder "the tree is large and the flowers are flourishing." ”
But this famous Qionghua is the only one in Yangzhou.
Why? Why is it so rare?
Actually very well explained. This flower is an outlier of artificial care.
Qionghua is native to the mountain forests of the Yangtze River Basin, including the local mountain forests of Yangzhou, and Wang Yuwei's contemporaries talk about Qionghua, saying that there are often wild small Qionghua in the mountains, but because people burn the wilderness, every year when the weeds and shrubs are cleaned up, so this wild grass and trees can not grow at all, and the flowering is not good.
Then the wild qionghua must be propagated by the fruit, and the land is poor and slow to grow, and it is often ignored, so it does not grow at all.
However, this one in the Houtu Temple, because there is no other tree competing for nutrients, and with the care of the Taoist monks, it gradually grows from a wild Qionghua Temple, and what is returned to the temple is a slow growth, but the huge amount of flowers and fragrance accumulated is accumulated.
It had nothing to do with the Sui Dynasty Emperor's Southern Tang Dynasty.
So is Qionghua the only one in the world? At least the Yuan haoqing of the Jin Dynasty, in the shaanxi mountains and forests, saw wild Qionghua, four people hugging, flowers blooming like snow, different from the eight petals of the eight immortals, but also different from the hydrangea flowers. It's really hard to determine how many years this flower is. At least it is bigger than the Yangzhou Houtu Temple.
Another fifty years have passed, and a generation of literary heroes Ouyang Xiu came to Yangzhou as a prefect, saw Qionghua, and immediately built the Peerless Pavilion.
With these high-ranking officials with rich experience and cultural knowledge, they are all concluding that there is only one Qionghua tree in the world, and the unparalleled reputation of the Qionghua tree in the world has also become the label of Yangzhou. There are countless people watching Qionghua on the Peerless Pavilion, and there are countless poems.
They are all amazed by these ancient wood qionghua flowers that are at least two hundred years old.
"The East Wind is full of trees, and there is no unique flower in the world."
There is a warm sun with a spirit of the sun, and it does not separate the quicksand from the Qi tree.
The ancestral city is lonely and old in spring, and the river rain is easy to tilt.
The immortal national incense is exquisite, and it is less happy to flow to the xia. Northern Song Dynasty · Liu Chang,"Peerless Pavilion Viewing Qionghua Gift to Saints"
In late spring, it is the luxuriant period of trees and green leaves, and only the qiong flowers bloom at this time, which is unparalleled in the world.
The snow-white flowers are facing the warm spring sun, and they are not melted away because they are as white as snow.
What a lovely and precious fairy flower.
It is the late spring when there is more green and less red everywhere, and it is the dusk of the twilight spring drizzle.
Standing under the Qionghua tree, I forgot the sadness of spring returning to spring, and only felt that in the fairyland, let people drink bitterly.
"Qionghua (蕃釐) looks at the Qionghua tree, the first flower in the middle of heaven and earth.
Where this kind of origin is explored, the spring breeze is nowhere to flourish.
Thousand-bearded butterflies surround Qingfu, and nine calyxes are associated with beads.
See several zhu clothes and dew scissors, golden bottle advanced to the imperial family. "Song · Wang Yuepu "Qionghua"
After another hundred years, Emperor Huizong of Song gave the name of Houtu Temple, but ordinary people called it Qionghua Temple.
The qionghua here has existed for at least 300 years.
Qiong flowers bloom every year, the first beautiful flower between heaven and earth, spring wind blossoms, everywhere luxurious.
A thousand butterfly-like petals flutter everywhere, and each flower plate is a series of nine flowers, very different from other flowers and trees.
I saw the court attendants dressed in vermilion clothes, cutting off the qionghua flowers, packing them in gold bottles, and quickly sending them to the palaces of the northern emperors.
So the question is, the Song Dynasty people loved to cultivate flowers and trees the most, don't they know how to keep seeds and prune cuttings to cultivate?
Is it just such a flower?
First, qionghua, according to the current similar to qionghua wood hydrangeas and eight immortals, their flowers are mostly asexual flowers, so it is rarely difficult to keep seeds. Qionghua should also be, even if there is, small seeds cultivate flowers and trees, I don't know how many years it will grow and flower, and Qionghua is so old, if you cultivate with seeds, it may be difficult to see the trees that bloom alive.
Second, I think Yangzhou people must have tried cuttings and grafting, but the vast majority of them failed.
Third, it is not without successful cases. For example, with the rootstock of the eight immortals, grafting the branches of the qionghua, the qionghua can continue to survive.
In the Song Dynasty, there were at least two transplants, one was during the Song Renzong Qing calendar, which was the Taiping Era, transplanting the flowers and trees of Yangzhou to the palace in the north, it should be a thing, but it has not yet left Yangzhou City, this 200-year-old Qionghua tree, it is dying. The imperial palace can not go, then Yangzhou has also lost the treasure, how to remedy?
It was a robust rootstock of the Eight Immortals, connected to the branches of the Qionghua that had not yet completely died, and as a result, the Qionghua came alive and bloomed more luxuriantly.
Then the second time, during the Southern Song Dynasty Chunxi period, this time it was to transplant the Qionghua of the rootstock with the Eight Immortals again, but the result failed again, and the same way was taken again, using the rootstock of the Eight Immortals to graft the Qionghua and preserve it.
And in the Song Dynasty, Qionghua also suffered repeated disasters, once the Jin soldiers invaded Yangzhou and cut down qionghua, some say that the Taoist found a small bud on the root and cultivated it carefully, but I personally still tend to, this is the rootstock, and the Daoist priests with hearts still retained the branches of the Qionghua and grafted it into life again.
The last time, of course, was the fall of the Song Dynasty, the qiong flower was left unmanaged, and as the rootstock withered, it never had the opportunity to bloom again.
So what kind of flower is Qionghua?
First, it was originally a wild flower tree with a long growth cycle.
Second, its flowers bloom, similar to the wood hydrangea, and the poly-eight hydrangeas, but in between, there are butterfly-like petals of the woody hydrangea, but it is a flower plate with nine white flowers, flattened and clustered together. The reason why the Qionghua in the Houtu Temple is more spectacular than the wooden hydrangea is because the flower tree is long, huge, and the corolla is magnificent, forming a single tree flower sea that is more magnificent than the ordinary wooden hydrangea.
Third, the poly-eight immortals, although similar to the Qiong flower, but the eight petals, there are small sub-flowers in the middle, compared to the Qiong flower, the color is not pure and unified.
Fourth, the qiong flowers maintain the special fragrance of the wild flower tree, which is attracting bee butterflies to pollinate. The aroma of Juba Immortals and Wood Hydrangeas is much lighter.
Many people say that the qionghua is extinct. However, I didn't quite believe it. It is just the qionghua tree in the original mountain wilderness, it is not easy to grow and flower, and the competition between the grass and trees in the mountain forest is fierce, and the qionghua tree, because of the long growth cycle, or when it blooms, is not as good as the Qionghua of Yangzhou Houtuguan, so huge and eye-catching. Yuan Haowen of the Jin Dynasty once saw a huge wild Qionghua tree in the Mountains of Shaanxi, so in the primitive mountain forest, there must still be Qionghua, where it grows quietly.
Just wait for an opportunity to reappear in front of the world.
Then we can appreciate the wood hydrangeas and poly-hydrangeas that are similar to the Qionghua and wait for the return of the Qionghua again.
Hatsuyoshi Katsuyuki interprets the love and beauty in the poems for you. Image from the web.