Wang Xizhi's love for geese can be described as a household name, but Wang Xizhi's love for planting fruit trees is rarely known. According to the Book of Jin, in his later years, Wang Xizhi traveled to the end of his life, cultivated mulberry fruits at home, and whenever the fruit trees blossomed and bore fruit, he "led his sons, hugged his weak grandchildren, and traveled to see them, and there was a taste of sweetness, and cut and divided."
In addition to planting common local fruit trees, Wang Xizhi also widely sought the world's best fruit seedlings and tried to transplant and cultivate. In the "Lai Fowl Post", he specially reminded his old friend Yizhou Thorn Shi Zhoufu: "Green plums, lai fowl, cherries, and nichiren vines, the seeds are all sacs are better, and the envelopes are not born." "This means that if you send the seeds of green plums, birds, cherries, and sun-given vines, it is best to put them in a cloth bag, and if they are sealed in a box, they often cannot germinate when they are planted.
Eastern Jin Dynasty Wang Xizhi "Lai Fowl Thesis" part
It can be seen that Wang Xizhi is very fond of several fruits such as green plums, birds, cherries, and nichiren vines. Cherry, is well known to modern people. Green plum is a kind of plum. Some people say that it is a vine plant, and Li Shizhen believes that it may be a cate (柰, the earliest name for a native Chinese apple). Come bird, the name is a bit strange, now it is difficult to determine what kind of fruit it is, we can only appreciate this ancient fruit from the depictions of the predecessors.
Lai fowl, in ancient times, was an alias for "Lin Zhen". The ancients believed: "This fruit has a sweet taste and can come to the forest, so it has the name of the forest and the bird." According to books such as "Guangzhi", Lin Yu looks like "Red Oak" (red apple), but the color is dark, so it is also known as "Black Oak". During the Two Han Dynasties, the production areas of Lin Zhen were mainly in Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan. By the Wei and Jin dynasties, the cultivation range of Lin Qi had expanded to the south, and Wang Xizhi also tasted the delicacies of lai poultry through transplantation during this period.
Tao Hongjing of the Southern Dynasty said: "Lin Zhen is similar (柰) and small. Chen Shiliang, a southern Tang dynasty in the fifth dynasty, once compared three similar plants, lin, and catalpa, and said: "There are three kinds of this: 'The big elder is the tree, the round one is the forest, the small one is astringent, and the autumn ripe, one catalpa is the catalpa.'" All indicate that the fruit of the ancient lin dan is smaller than the tree and is round. Li Shizhen also said: "柰 and 林檎, one type and two kinds of also. Trees and realities are like forests and are large. He also said, "Lin Yu, that is, the small and round one." Its taste is drunk, that is, catalpa also. Its categories include Golden Forest Oak, Red Forest Oak, Water Forest Oak, Honey Forest Oak, and Black Forest Tree, all of which are famous for their color and taste. The black one is like a purple tree, and there is a winter moon that is re-solid. ”
The linden flower was also quite famous in ancient times. In the "Flower Classic", it ranks as "four products and six lives", and the grade is higher than that of peach blossoms, begonias, Lingxiao, camellias, etc. "Sanliuxuan Miscellaneous Knowledge" calls it "Beautiful Guest", and the beauty of its flowers can be seen. In the Tang Dynasty, Lin YuHua was also known as "Moon Linhua". Yuan Shu has the poem "Moon Linhua": "Ling Feng Flutters Flowers, Translucent Shadow Flutters Moon." Wuxia is separated by waves of clouds, and Gufeng is leaking snow. The mirrors are all delicate flour, and the lights are high and caged. The night is long and dewy, and the beads are still knotted. "Describe Lin Yuhua as a hazy moon shadow, Gu Feng Xia Xue, and a girl with pink noodles." Zheng Gu's poem "Water Forest Flowers" uses "laughter to imitate spring weakness, makeup and wine gradually drunk" to describe the flower posture and flower color of Lin Zhen. The Song Dynasty Chen Youyi's poem "Coming to the Birds and Flowers" describes the birds and flowers as "rouge last night and snow today", revealing that the bird flowers are pink when they first bloom, and turn white when they bloom.
Song Lin Chun 《Fruit Ripe Bird Diagram》
Yuan Qianxuan 《林檎圖》
The description of words and the description of poetry, even if it is accurate and conveyed, is still abstract. To understand the true face of Lin Zhen, whether it is Lin Zhen Guo and Lin Dan Flower, or it is inseparable from the ancient realistic flower and bird paintings. Song Dynasty painter Lin Chun has a "Picture of Ripe Birds", in which the yin and yang of the branches and leaves and the back of the leaves and the structural posture of the birds are depicted very accurately, and the picture is still and moving, full of fun. The bird in the picture is a brown-headed crow. The leaves of the trees in the picture are yellowed, the fruit is ripe, and there are traces of insect erosion and bite. As can be seen from the picture, the forest fruit is a bit like an apple. Another more realistic picture of Lin Tan Guo is the "Lin Tan Tu" selected by the famous painter Qian Xuan of the Yuan Dynasty. The fruit in the picture is round, green with red, and is not yet ripe.
Yuan Qianxuan "Bird Gardenia Diagram" partial
As for the appearance of Lin Zhanghua, the true portrayal can be found in Qian Xuan's "Gardenia Diagram of Birds and Birds" and "Eight Flowers Diagram". The forest bird flowers in these two pictures have a very high degree of similarity, their forms are almost exactly the same, and the painting method is the same, which is very realistic. As can be seen from the picture, the buds of the forest bird flower are pink, and after blooming, the flower blooms five petals, and the flower color becomes white with pink or pure white, which is completely consistent with Chen Youyi's description of "rouge last night and snow today".