What does wintersweet look like?
If you want to learn about the appearance of wintersweet and the characteristics of its flowers, as well as some small experiences in plant cultivation, the following is a detailed sharing.
The wintersweet flowers bloom against the cold, with branches full of golden little bells, and the breeze brings a delicate fragrance. In the winter when other plants wither, the beautiful and fragrant wintersweet is how not to be liked?
The wintersweet by the Baotu Spring is in full bloom, but do you know how many little secrets it has?
01
How many names does it have?
The English name for wintersweet is Wintersweet, which means sweet fragrance in winter, summarizing the flowering period and fragrance of the wintersweet. Although it has a foreign name, wintersweet is a traditional famous flower native to China, with a history of cultivation of over a thousand years.
Wintersweet was originally called yellow plum, and by the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu built the Shanglin Garden and looked for all kinds of rare flowers and plants to be placed inside. The official in charge of court construction saw that its petals had nine pieces, so he named it Nine Petal Plum for good luck.
In the Song Dynasty, the poet Huang Tingjian publicly announced the name of wintersweet in his writings. In his "Two Poems on Wintersweet", he wrote such a postscript: "There is a kind of flower in Jingluo, its fragrance is similar to plum blossoms, it has five petals but cannot be bright, similar to the wax made by women. People in Jingluo call it wintersweet. The trunk and leaves are similar to Suijue (Hierodotis). Dou Gaozhou's family has a shrub that can fill a garden with fragrance..."
In the early Qing Dynasty, "Flower Mirror" said: "Wintersweet is commonly known as蜡梅, also known as yellow plum, not a type of plum, because it blooms with plums and its fragrance is similar, the color is similar to beeswax, and it opens in December, hence its name."
02
Some Misunderstandings
Although commonly known as蜡梅, the flowering period of wintersweet is not limited to December. It starts to bloom as early as early December, and the flowers can last for more than two months until the following February. Moreover, in the wintersweet family, in addition to wintersweet, there are also bright-leafed wintersweet (blooms from September to November), willow-leafed wintersweet (blooms from October to November), American wintersweet, and summer wintersweet (blooms from April to June).
Because it has a similar flowering period to plum and its name contains "plum", many people confuse wintersweet with plum. In fact, they are not "related" at all, not even distant relatives. Wintersweet belongs to the wintersweet family, while plum belongs to the rose family, the plum family, and it is really difficult to be considered the same. Wintersweet has a rich fragrance, while plum has a faint fragrance. Wintersweet flowers are mostly golden yellow to light yellow, while plum flowers are mostly red to white.
03
Does wintersweet have varieties?
The "Xianchun Lin'an Annals" from the Southern Song Dynasty mentioned that there are several types of wintersweet, with檀心 and 罄口 being the best. Su Shi's seven-character ancient poem "Ode to Wintersweet for Zhao Jingzhu" mentions "jade core and sandalwood heart are both extraordinary". The "Yanpu Miscellaneous Records" from the Qing Dynasty records: "Yanling plain-hearted wintersweet, its color is light yellow, its heart is pure white, about a foot tall, old trunk and sparse branches, the flower fragrance is rich, elegant and moving."
What does wintersweet look like?
According to modern plant classification, some scholars classify wintersweet varieties based on the color change of the inner tepals into plain-hearted wintersweet group, flushed-hearted wintersweet group, and red-hearted wintersweet group. Those almost entirely covered with purple-red patterns belong to the red-hearted group, those with less than half covered with purple-red patterns belong to the flushed-hearted group, and those with no purple-red patterns at all belong to the plain-hearted group.
There are now more than 70 wintersweet plants planted in the Baotu Spring Park, with about 20 varieties, including plain-hearted, flushed-hearted, and red-hearted, and flower shapes including bell-shaped, conical, bowl-shaped, bell-shaped, plate-shaped, and lotus-shaped.
Winter is about to end, will you regret missing it?
The above is the complete introduction to the appearance of wintersweet and the characteristics of its flowers from [www.lvzhimi.com], for everyone to learn and understand!