Everyone should have heard of the other side of the flower, some people heard it from the song "The Other Side of the Flower", some people saw it from the novel "The Other Side of the Flower", but these two works are old, and some friends may have learned from some Japanese anime and game works.
In short, when various literary and film and television works mention this flower, they are often related to death, memories, love, etc., and they are labeled with sadness and mystery on the other side of the flower.
The element of "Other Shore Flower" can be seen on the skin of one of the gods in the mobile game "Yin and Yang Division".
So what is this "other side flower"?
Looks like a heavenly immortal, the name is particularly local
In the late summer and early autumn, some bright flowers will suddenly emerge from the crevices between the mountains: there are no leaves, only a lone stem protrudes from the ground, and at the top of the stem, there are several slightly cracked trumpet-shaped flowers, either orange-yellow or bright red, which attract people's attention. These flowers seem to be made out of nothing, blooming without a sense of reality.
Yes, it is such a delicate flower, but it has an extremely grounded name - stone garlic.
Stone garlic
Stone garlic has a bulb like an oversized garlic head in the ground, and usually grows in the rocks of the mountains or between coastal rocks, hence the name.
This is the bulb of the flower (a type of stone garlic) in spring
Photo: Tang Zhiyuan
In fact, its relationship with garlic is not very close, and it can only barely climb a long cousin. The previous paragraph that was crossed out is the description used when the article was first published in the Museum, which refers to the traditional classification system, but don't think that only the weight will change greatly in 4 years, and the same is true for plants (jumping up and down).
With the continuous iteration of technology, people began to use gene sequencing methods to explore the kinship between plants, and found that the genus is actually closer to the relationship between the genus and the family Lycaenidae. So don't think that the relationship between stone garlic and onions is very stable now, let's observe for a few more years.
Image credit: Naturalist Calendar 2021
All species of stone garlic belong to the genus Officinalis in the family Lycopodium, and are often planted for ornamental purposes due to their gorgeous flowers. In fact, many of the plants in the garlic family are traditional flowers, such as daffodils and vermilion.
Vermilion red
Specific to the genus Lycopoda, members have a common feature: flowers always grow before the leaves, and only grow leaves after the flowers fall. The flower morphology of various stone garlic can be roughly divided into two categories: some are shaped like trumpets and open laterally; others are lobed, strongly revolted after flowering, wavy folds appear at the edges, and the flower buds are elongated and stretched.
Flowers are followed by the leaves of the stone garlic
During the flowerless season, the leaves of stone garlic are also striking — long, flattened, and grow in clumps, like a wide version of daffodil leaves. The crossed-out description is a bit generalized, and in order to let everyone know more (the head is larger), it should be said that the leaves of stone garlic are generally a bit like daffodils, but some are wider and some are narrower.
Do you understand? That is, it's not the same anyway.
Some species grow leaves immediately after flowering and spend the entire winter, while others do not bud until early spring and do not bloom again until the leaves wither in late summer. So there is no uniform time.
In fact, the stage name also has a beginning
Most of the stone garlic has the habit of flowering in late summer and early autumn, and the leaves after flowering are called "autumn shore" due to the autumn equinox in Japan, and the stone garlic that blooms in this season is called "the other shore flower" in the local area.
Because buddhist legends have "Manju Shahua" (meaning the flower of heaven), which is explained as "Red Tuanhua" in the texts, its color and morphological characteristics are very similar to the most common safflower stone garlic in China, Japan and other places, so the "other side of the flower" is gradually installed with the name of "Manju Shahua".
Nowadays, the common "other side flower" or "manju shahua" in literary and artistic works usually refers to the red flower stone garlic. And because stone garlic originally had the characteristics of "flowers and leaves never meet", just like the human world and the underworld, yin and yang are eternally separated, so in Japanese folk customs, stone garlic is used to mourn the dead. In some animation works, you can also see the embodiment of the flower language "other shore flower".
The scene of "Game King vrains" using "other shore flowers" to go to the grave
In the cartoon, "the other side of the flower" is used to express the thought of grandpa
Image courtesy of Utopian New Seeds and Millennium Magic
The saying of "other side flowers" only gradually became popular in China at the end of the 20th century, before that, safflower stone garlic in Chinese folk, in fact, there are occasional attachments related to religion or life and death (after all, stone garlic likes open open spaces, growing on the edge of fields and cemeteries is not surprising, it can be described as true - grave head grass). But after all, there are great differences in the geographical environment and culture of various parts of China, so it has not become a relatively widely circulated public saying.
If your hometown has the habit of turning safflower garlic into the "other side flower", or what legend is there, you may wish to leave a message and share it with you.
In China, the common name of "other shore flower" is more grounded: it is named "red spider flower" because the flower blooms like an upside-down spider, or because the bulb has a black skin and is shaped like a lump, it is called "cow poop flower".
Safflower stone garlic
Another common wild stone garlic deer onion, there is a rumor that wild deer like to eat it, hence the name. It is the earliest species of stone garlic to bloom in mid-summer, and the folk also call it "summer daffodil".
Deer onion plant
In addition to safflower, there are many kinds of stone garlic
There are more than 20 species of garlic plants in the world, most of which are distributed in East Asia, and there are 15 species in China (of which 10 species are endemic to China). To distinguish these stone garlic, you can first determine the approximate species according to the flower shape and color, and as for some similar species, you need to observe subtle features.
Let's try to take you to distinguish it (don't hit me after reading):
Hand-drawn: Yu Tianyi
The Latin scientific name is Lycoris radiata. The main points of identification are that the leaves emerge in autumn and are narrowly banded; the umbel-shaped inflorescence has 4 to 7 flowers; the flowers are bright red, the flowers are narrow and long by the fringes, and the edges have obvious wavy folds and are rolled back; the stamens are significantly protruding, about 1 times longer than the indumentum lobes. Stone garlic is distributed in East China, Central China, South China, Southwest China, born on wet hillsides, ditch edges, commonly planted in North China and other places, the flowering period is from August to September.
The most well-known star is of course the so-called "other side flower", its Chinese official name is called "stone garlic", because the flower blooms red, in order to facilitate the distinction, usually we call it safflower stone garlic.
Another common stone garlic flower is yellow, called "sudden laughter", and the flower has a distinct wavy fold at the edge of the indumentum, and the flower bud is usually longer than the indumentum. There are two other yellow flower species, the "Chinese stone garlic" flower bud is shorter, and the "Anhui stone garlic" flower is shaped like a trumpet, and the flower is less wrinkled by cracks.
Laugh suddenly
The Latin scientific name is Lycoris aurea. The main points of identification are that the leaves emerge in autumn, narrow sword-shaped; the umbel-shaped inflorescence, with 4 to 8 flowers; the flowers are yellow, the flowers are narrow and long, the edges have obvious wavy folds and rewinds; and the stamens protrude from the corolla. It is distributed in south China, as well as some provinces and regions in central and southwest China, born on the slopes of yin and wet mountains, and is commonly planted in north China, east China and other places, and the flowering period is from August to September.
Suddenly laugh at the plant
Change the brocade
The Latin scientific name is Lycoris sprengeri. The main points of identification are that the leaves emerge in early spring, banded; the umbel-shaped inflorescence, with 4 to 6 flowers; the flowers are pale pink, or pale pink transition to light blue, the corolla is trumpeted, the flowers are lobed and the edges are wrinkled without folds; and the stamens are slightly protruding from the corolla. It is distributed in some provinces and regions of East China and Central China, born on wet slopes or bamboo forests, and is commonly planted in North China, South China and other places, and the flowering period is from August to September.
The "deer onion" that blooms in mid-summer is usually pure pink in color, and the flowers are larger and resemble small lilies. Another pink flower, the stone garlic, blooms slightly later, called "changing brocade flowers", the flowers are smaller, the flower color changes between blue and pink, and the color transition is natural and subtle. The flower color of "red blue stone garlic" is also a transition between pink and blue, and the flower is lobed but has more wrinkles.
Flowers of deer onions
There are also white flowers of stone garlic - "long barrel stone garlic" flowers are large and stretched, shaped like trumpets, the flowers are lobed without wrinkles; "fragrant stone garlic", the flowers are red in the middle vein. In addition, there is a kind of "straw stone garlic", the flower color is slightly similar to dry straw, milky white or light dry yellow.
Long tube of stone garlic
Photo: Yu Tianyi
Straw stone garlic
How, is it possible to easily distinguish one or two?
It doesn't matter if you don't understand, let's say something practical. The next time I see the description of the other shore flower in literature and film and television works, I hope that everyone does not have to be too deep and too sad to enter the play, think about its other name cow flower, is it a spirit?
Written by | Yu Tianyi
Drawing | Yu Tianyi
Some of the images are from | 123rf.com.cn