When we see some familiar flowers in the streets, alleys, mountains and fields, the joy of blurting out their names may be the easiest to overflow. It is like inadvertently encountering an old friend who has not been seen for many years, both excited and nostalgic, and there is a kind of willingness to raise your hand to push the window and watch the sun shine in.
But more often than not, we may be limited by the lack of relevant knowledge, and we are not so familiar with these ubiquitous flowers and plants. The vastness of nature often amazes us: even the tender grass buds that can be seen everywhere on the roadside, and the dots of flowers that have inadvertently been filled with branches, also have their own morphological characteristics, various changes, and their own cute and interesting, image-like cultural side. Acquaintance with the "grass and trees of the world", starting from this spring.
This article is from the B06 of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's April 8 special topic "Looking for Flowers and Traces".
"Theme" B01 丨Finding flowers
"Theme" B02-B03丨 No spring is the same
"Theme" B04-B05 丨 Flower Traces Spring Beijing Flower Hunting Map
"Theme" B06丨 "Grass and Trees on Earth" Flowing in the Four Seasons of Nature
"Literature" B07 丨 Zagaevsky: The world is a unity of knowable and unknowable
"Literature" B08 丨 "Guard Life" Who does the city belong to?
Written by | He An'an
"Yanyuan Flower Affair", by Wang Jinwu, edition: The Commercial Press, July 2019.
A small notebook, a small ruler, plus a magnifying glass and pen, this is the research tool carried by Wang Jinwu, an expert in plant taxonomy and popular science writer in the Department of Biology of Peking University, to complete this peking university campus grass and tree history. Since entering the Department of Botany at Peking University in 1951, Wang Jinwu has been fascinated by plants and trees for more than 60 years. On the campus of Peking University, there are mulberry trees, goji berries, sour dates, elms, oil pines, peonies, lotuses and plum blossoms, as well as many wild vegetables and wild grasses... In the book, the author specifically introduces these campus plants, with the purpose of understanding the plants of Peking University, and popularizes the knowledge of plant science, in accordance with the order of woody, flowers, medicinal plants, wild vegetables, weeds and rare species, each species writes three to five small stories, and accompanied by an extended knowledge, each story between three or four hundred words, the morphological characteristics of plants, ornamental characteristics, distribution, eloquent, concise and vivid, for readers to understand and appreciate the plants of Peking University, is a very practical guide.
"The Wildflower Illustrated Book Around Us", by Mayumi Maeda, Translator: Xia Yan, Edition: Yazhong Culture 丨 East China Normal University Press, February 2022.
How to make dandelion coffee, vine hand cream? How to play balloon blowing with morning glory? Where can I find dogtail grass? What are the small partners of cabbage? Which wildflowers can be made into a delicious little snack? Do you see a lot of familiar flowers and plants in your daily life, but you can't call them names? As a wildflower illustrated book, the interaction between the book and the plant can be seen everywhere, while answering our "100,000 whys" of flowers and plants, the author introduces the common plants around us according to the timeline of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and includes more than 100 kinds of flowers and plants with super high-value color lead hand-painted, for us who want to start a "flower recognition journey", this fresh and interesting reading can become an introductory choice.
Beijing Wildflowers, eds.: Yang Axe, Yang Jing, Edition: Peking University Press, September 2018.
"Wildflower" is a traditional word with folkloric overtones, not a botanical term, but a term that combines human culture with the natural attributes of the species. According to relevant literature, There are more than 1540 species of naturally growing angiosperms (including subspecies and variants) in Beijing, of which wildflower species are very rich. As a botanist, Yang Axe has a wealth of experience in wild plants, and has a special complex for wildflowers born in Beijing, and her daughter Yang Jing has also loved natural history observation since childhood, and has accompanied her father to the mountain forest many times to observe and photograph wildflowers. The book contains 462 species of 88 families of "wildflowers" (mainly insect-borne plants in angiosperms, taking into account the species with certain ornamental value in wind-borne flowers) in Beijing, arranged according to the position of the plant classification system (Cronquist system), mainly based on primary color photos taken in the field showing flower morphology, taking into account the stem, leaf and fruit morphology and ecological environment, and supplementing each plant with text description. Obviously, these "wildflowers" are the precious treasure that nature has given us.
Handbook of Field Identification of Common Plants in China (Beijing Volume), Editor-in-Chief: Liu Bing, Lin Qinwen, Li Min, Edition: The Commercial Press, April 2018.
On the Baihuashan Road, I met an herbaceous plant with yellow flowers, symmetrical sides, and butterfly shape, what should I do if I want to know its name? If you happen to have a handbook of field identification of common plants in China (Beijing booklet), this problem may be solved. As an outdoor reference book created by plant taxonomists for beijing native plant enthusiasts, the book introduces 1221 species of common plants in Beijing in 127 families and 565 genera, accounting for about 3/4 of the total number of vascular plants in Beijing, which can provide a targeted, scientific and readable reference for field identification of plants in North China (covering common species in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, southeastern Inner Mongolia, southern Liaoning and other places). For ordinary people, this book helps everyone to know, understand and share the wonders of the plant world, and then stimulate people's enthusiasm for the rational use and effective protection of plants.
"Wind Blows Grass and Wood", author: Mo Fei, edition: Peking University Press, September 2018.
"Leaves are always thicker, deeper and fresher than a book. If we haven't even read what's under our noses, what can we see in the library? The living 'knowledge' is in the blades of grass in the morning, in the buds of the flowers at noon, in the berries of dusk. Feeling the increasingly huge rift between nature and civilization, in the "poetic naturalistic work" of "Wind and Grass and Wood Movement", Mo Fei takes the twenty-four solar terms as the clue, skillfully combines the subtle and timeless modern poetry, exquisite and elegant natural essays and delicate and profound backlit photographic pictures, showing us the subtle changes of hundreds of "human grasses and trees" such as Ling Xiao, Wax Plum, Tianmu Qionghua, Luo Li, Yu Meiren, Begonia, Magnolia, Ginkgo Biloba, Gourd, Honeysuckle and other hundreds of "human grasses and trees" in the four seasons of nature. And the aesthetic taste and cultural meaning they present in Chinese life.
Seventy-Two Fanhua Trade Winds, by Wang Chen, Lin Yufei, Edition: The Commercial Press, June 2020.
This is a collection of essays from the perspective of modern botanists to examine, excavate and examine the different seasons of ancient China. Since the Song Dynasty, the mainland folk have had the term "flower trade wind", which is intended to express the message that in a certain festival or season, a certain flower just blooms or flourishes, as if the wind brings the message of flowering. This book adopts the term "flower trade winds", with twenty-four solar terms throughout the year, each with three weathers, and chooses flowers that coincide with the opening of the season or season according to the ancient meaning. It can be said that from the perspective of modern botany, following the laws of nature, it has completed the "flower trade wind" of the ancients. Each flower is assigned a picture and text, telling the story of the author's encounter with the plant, and telling the ancient and modern flow of plant names, poetic imagery and cultural significance, as well as the identification and interpretation of this plant by modern science.
Yuxing: The Pictorial History of Flowers and Trees, by Wang Zhongxu, Edition: Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, January 2021.
According to the "Xuanhe Painting Spectrum and Narrative of Flowers and Birds" compiled by the court of Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty, a good flower and bird painting needs to have the characteristics of "Yuxing": painting peonies and peonies needs to highlight the state of wealth and nobility, and painting pine bamboo plum chrysanthemums should reflect the feelings of leisure, all of which are to transfer and project people's emotions or character onto flowers and trees. The writing of the book is based on the participation of Wang Zhongxu, a researcher at the Palace Museum, and the preparation of the 2019 Annual Exhibition of the Palace Museum's Noon Gate " Wanzi Qianhong - A Special Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Flower and Wood Cultural Relics", and the development of flower and wood painting is divided into four parts: the appearance of flowers, the grid of flowers, the love of flowers, and the beauty of flowers according to the times and styles. The author tries to present the history of the evolution of ancient Chinese flower and wood images from the perspective of Yuxing, expound the emergence and evolution of its themes, styles, and schemas, and always pay attention to placing them in the large soil of the evolution of flower and wood culture.
"Grass and Trees have hearts", author: Jindu, edition: Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House 丨 Zhiyu August 2021.
This is a botanical notebook written with poetic brushstrokes, starting from the author's childhood memories, with personal observations of a series of processes such as tillering, growth, flowering, fruiting, and withering of plants as clues, and telling the growth process and life experience nourished by plants. In the book, there are not only plant lovers' descriptions of the appearance and growth habits of flowers and plants, but also a shorthand sketch of the wanderer's hometown customs and customs, and more deep experience of life and the perception and reflection of the cycle of life. Such a private book of grass and trees allows readers to recognize the cute side of the grass and trees around them, but also has more thinking about the grand topics of people, life, and the world.