"Shame is in the company of the grass, and He Tingting is unique!" Why not be appreciated by people, and the mountains and valleys are severely frosted? "More than a thousand years ago, cen shan, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, once chanted snow lotus in this way.
Snow lotus, also known as "snow lotus", is called "Tag elis" in Xinjiang Uyghur. It has biological characteristics adapted to alpine environments. Its leaves are extremely dense, shaped like long white woolly hairs, like cotton balls, and the wool is intertwined, forming countless 'small chambers'. The gas in the chamber is difficult to exchange with the outside world, and during the day under the direct sunlight, it absorbs more heat than the surrounding soil and air; at night, its temperature decreases very slowly, so it can keep warm and cold and prevent the strong evaporation of water. The wool layer can protect the body from strong radiation.
Snow lotus flowers are mostly distributed in the Tianshan Mountains (Urumqi, Bokda Mountain, Heshuo) and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in Xinjiang. It is also found in Russia and Kazakhstan. It can tolerate a variety of complex climatic environments and usually grows below the alpine snow line.
The Tianshan Snow Lotus grows on the steep cliffs and ice-stained rock crevices of the Tianshan Mountains at an altitude of about 4,000 meters; where the climate is extremely cold, the snow does not melt all year round, and the general plants cannot survive at all, but the Snow Lotus can grow stubbornly in the cold of minus tens of degrees and the oxygen-poor environment of thin air.
Due to the harsh and changeable growth environment, snow lotus flowers can only flower and bear fruit in three to five years, and the seeds are scattered in the mountains with the wind during the flowering period, and only seeds that encounter a suitable environment are likely to germinate and grow.
Tibetans divide snow lotus flowers into males and females, and it is said that females can be eaten raw and have a sweet taste, and males have a bitter taste. There are many kinds of snow lotuses, which are divided into jellyfish snow lotuses, cotton-headed snow lotuses, hairy snow lotuses, Tibetan snow lotuses and so on.
The soil in which the snow lotus takes root is formed by bacteria, mosses, and lichen decomposition rocks, and it takes millions of years of slow processes. Picking requires some skill, if uprooted, it will make it difficult for the already small pieces of soil to recover its original fertility, making it almost impossible for the snow lotus to grow in place.
The exquisite snow lotus, because it is very rare and precious, and has a peculiar medicinal value, people regard it as "the king of hundreds of herbs" and "the best in medicine".