Beijing, March 25 (reporter Shangguan Yun) "Late days and beautiful mountains, spring breeze flowers and herbs." "In recent days, the news of rape flowers and peach blossoms in full bloom has become a hot topic on the Internet. Some say it's because they bring the much-anticipated spring weather.
In fact, in ancient China, there was already a saying of "twenty-four flower trade winds", that is, among the plants that bloomed within each of the 24 seasons, a plant with a more accurate flowering period was selected as a representative, starting from the plum blossoms of the first season of the small cold, to the end of the neem flowers in the valley rain, and then the summer came.
Data map: The picture shows the peach blossoms in Fuzhou West Lake Park, full of spring. Photo by Zhang Bin
Wind-blown flowers bring spring scent
The birth of the twenty-four flower trade winds has a certain relationship with the traditional twenty-four solar terms. In ancient China, five days were used as one season and three days as a solar term, for a total of seventy-two days.
Cold winters always seem extraordinarily long, and people look forward to the arrival of spring. There are a total of twenty-four seasons in the eight solar terms from small cold to valley rain, and people choose a flower to correspond to each weather, and the wind flowers bloom, which together are "twenty-four flower trade winds".
Therefore, Xiao Han is the starting point: one wait for plum blossoms, two wait for camellia, and three wait for daffodils. In the spring festival, the rain is one waiting for cauliflower, two waiting for apricot blossoms, three waiting for plum flowers; stinging is one waiting for peach blossoms, two waiting for tang pears, three waiting for roses... When it comes to the valley rain, one waits for peony, two wait for emulsion, and three wait for neem flowers.
According to this saying, the plum blossoms are the first in the trade winds of the year, and the neem flowers are last. After twenty-four trade winds, summer, starting with the summer, arrived.
Wind letter and flower letter
It is now generally believed that the flower trade wind is the flower letter that accompanies a specific period. In fact, in the past, there were different statements about flower trade winds.
The Southern Song Dynasty Cheng Dachang mentioned in "Yan Fan Lu": "Flower trade wind: The wind when the flowers bloom in March, the famous flower trade wind. At first, in general, it seems that this wind comes to report the news of flowers. ”
The "flower trade winds" mentioned here refer more heavily to the wind hyacinth, which actually refers to the wind weather during the spring flowers in March. But as time passed, the role of the "twenty-four flower trade winds" shifted to focus on representing flower letters. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the "Twenty-Four Flower Trade Winds" were regarded as the content of the nature of the Flower Month Order.
Infographic: The apricot blossoms are in full bloom. Hong Xing
Some people have examined that in the early Ming Dynasty, Wang Kui's "Li hai collection" put forward the complete title of "twenty-four flower trade winds", and the whole set of theories about "twenty-four flower trade winds" in later generations almost all originated from this.
"Twenty-four trade winds" and agricultural activities
As the saying goes: "flowers and trees are seasonal, birds are singing to report agricultural time", the animals and plants in nature are all active according to certain seasons and seasons, which is closely related to climate change.
Therefore, their various activities have become the symbol of the seasons, such as the budding, leafing, flowering, fruiting, yellowing and leaf fall of plants; the sleep of animals, migration, etc., are related to climate change, and these rhythmic phenomena in nature are called phenology.
In the Book of Verses, there are also many sentences about phenology, such as "April Xiuluo, May Singing", "July Flowing Fire", "August Peeling Dates, October Harvesting Rice" and so on.
Therefore, the twenty-four flower trade winds not only reflect the natural phenomenon of flower blooming and seasons, but more importantly, this phenomenon can be used to arrange agricultural activities, and some folk proverbs mention that "peach blossoms, swallows come, prepare grain to plant fields", reminding people not to miss the agricultural time.
Towards a warm spring
This year, with the warmer weather, rape flowers in many places have been opened. According to reports, in Wuyuan, Jiangxi Province, rape flowers have entered the blooming period, overlooking the bottom of the mountain, and the villages in the valley are submerged in the sea of clouds and flowers, like a paradise.
Data map: On March 16, aerial photography of 10,000 acres of terraced rapeseed flowers in Jiangling, Wuyuan County, Jiangxi, stretching over a sea of golden flowers, is very spectacular. Photo by Liu Zhankun
In addition, the "Beijing Juyongguan train to spring" has also been on the hot search. Some netizens also said that seeing the peach blossoms blooming on the side of the road, it seems to feel the spring that has arrived as promised.
It is understood that the first season of rain flowers and trade winds is cauliflower, some people think that this refers to rape flowers; and the flower trade winds of the first season of the stinging festival are peach blossoms, and the end of March is also the time to open.
Folklore expert Xiao Fang once mentioned that the twenty-four flower letters are the flower years that progress from midwinter to warm spring, "it makes our monotonous time have colorful colors." (End)