Chapter 22 Chapter 21 Furong's thousand forests are swept away, and only Furong is alone.

In autumn, when looking at and writing about flowers, the chrysanthemum should be the first according to the usual path of traditional poetry.But now, in many cities, it is difficult to see the chrysanthemums growing and blooming under the natural habitat.When the season comes, pots of chrysanthemums are placed densely and neatly, forming decorative color blocks and graphics on the streets, squares, and parks. It has a good visual effect when viewed from a distance. Look, but it lacks some natural charm.Complete European garden style.The chrysanthemum of Aoshuang, on the branches of the tree of Chinese poetry, is the most shining autumn flower.But leaning against the fence, although it is artificially arranged, it always retains the natural charm to the maximum extent.

Fortunately, if you want to write about autumn flowers in Chengdu, no matter how you say it, you have to start with woody hibiscus.Chengdu is basically on the north-south dividing line of China, and a little bit to the south.In summer, compared with the cities along the Yangtze River and south of the Yangtze River, there is not so much heat, and in winter, it is not as severe as the northern cities.Coupled with the fact that it is far inland and deep in the basin, it is less affected by the shifting monsoon, so the autumn is very long, and it can always invade deeply and occupy some winter territory.If you don't believe it, you can recall the time when the golden leaves of ginkgo were all over the ground.

In terms of timing, hibiscus flowers are almost the latest flowers of the year in Chengdu.As the saying goes, "the hibiscus is opened. The autumn is empty for a year". What's more gratifying is that her flowering period is long.At the end of September, everywhere in the city, you can occasionally see clusters of dark green hibiscus trees blooming sporadically one by two.At that time, a tree of yellow cassia was in full bloom.After the big holiday in October, the bright yellow flowers of the cassia tree appear to be falling apart.Autumn is getting stronger day by day. At this time, the white, pink and red hibiscus really bloom gradually.Su Dongpo's poem said: "Thousands of forests are swept away to be yellow, only hibiscus is fragrant alone."It is the season when this flower blooms.Su Dongpo is not the only observer who pays attention to Furong in this way.As early as the previous Tang Dynasty, Xue Tao, a female poet who lived in Chengdu for a long time, had a poem "Furong is new in autumn in Shushan".It is said that when the hibiscus flowers fall, the autumn in Sichuan is considered to have really come.Judging from the verses, Xue Cai's observation is more nuanced, and the hibiscus really blooms and falls.Since the days when the hibiscus bloomed, I have been watching around. After each hibiscus blooms, it only stays on the branches for about two days, and then withers and quietly falls under the tree.As long as you pay attention, you will see dozens or even hundreds of fallen flowers under each hibiscus tree and on the moist ground.But on the tree, at the top of each branch, there are more flowers blooming, or about to bloom, and more buds waiting to bloom.That is to say, the flowering period of hibiscus is still long, and the autumn in Chengdu, Sichuan Province is also deep and long.

This is the primary reason for viewing autumn flowers in Chengdu, hibiscus first—the reason for natural phenology. Of course, cultural reasons are even more important. Chengdu is referred to as "Rong" for more than a thousand years.This "Rong" is the "Rong" of Hibiscus flower and the "Rong" of Hibiscus hibiscus. This origin, at least a lot of Chengdu people know. There is a legend called "turtle painting hibiscus". It is said that when Chengdu was first built, the foundation was unstable and collapsed after repeated constructions. Later, a tortoise appeared, crawling on the ground for a week, and its track happened to be the shape of a hibiscus. Together, two years into a city, three years into Chengdu".

Another legend is accepted by more "Rongcheng" people, and it is called "Furong City". It is said that during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Meng Chang, the county of Houshu, ordered to plant hibiscus all over the city of Chengdu in order to protect the city wall. Whenever the hibiscus blooms in autumn, "forty miles of hibiscus are like a beautiful brocade", the city is full of light, and Chengdu has been named since then. It is called "Rongcheng".According to research, the city wall at that time was an earthen city. In Chengdu, where there is a lot of rain, the earthen city is easy to collapse, and the hibiscus tree is lush and dense on the ground, which can block the rain and directly wash the wall soil. soil-fixing effect.Maybe this reason is too pragmatic and not suitable for the beauty of "Rongcheng" or Furong itself, or it is true in history. Anyway, Chengdu people believe that Meng Chang chose Furong to protect and decorate Chengdu because of her princess. The influence of Mrs. Stamens.This Mrs. Huarui likes to appreciate flowers, and because the flowers in spring and summer are short and easy to wither, she is always in a state of sensitivity and sadness of "feeling the flowers and splashing tears".Later, when she was on an outing, she found this hibiscus flower that is proud of the cold and frost in the farmyard, and she was deeply comforted and loved very much.Therefore, Meng Chang planted hibiscus all over Chengdu in order to please her.

The hibiscus tree itself is indeed very beautiful. In terms of tree shape, if it is not pruned, it can grow to a height of more than ten meters. If there is enough space, the tree will not only go upwards, but its horizontal branches will escape in all directions. It will also be full and elegant when it is not in bloom .In the city, most of the hibiscus trees are pruned every year. It is not the usual small pruning, but all the branches are cut off, leaving only one main trunk.The height of this trunk, according to the needs of the background, or twenty or thirty centimeters, or one to two meters.But just on the main trunk pile, dozens or dozens of new branches can be pulled out that year, and they sprout radially. In summer, each new branch is one or two meters long, and each new branch has broad and large leaves alternately. The umbrella is like a cover, and the shade is full of greenery.The palm-shaped leaves are also neat and beautiful: each one is 3-5 lobed, the lobes are triangular, the base is heart-shaped, and the leaf margins are bluntly serrated.On such branches, clusters of flower buds are formed by those palm-like leaves.

Therefore, Furong is described in "Guang Qun Fang Pu" as follows: "It is elegant and elegant, and it is unique in the hall. The autumn river is lonely, and it does not complain about the east wind. It can be called a gentleman who waits for his life."The meaning of this sentence, of course, can be understood as that hibiscus is beautiful, but hibiscus is not just about flowers.Her leaves, and the figure of the whole tree are also beautiful and moving. Today is the Double Ninth Festival, and it is Saturday again. The thin sun came out. I took my camera and went out to look for Furong.

In fact, hibiscus flowers have gradually opened for more than ten days.There are sporadic fallen flowers under many trees.But there are more flowers on the branches, either already blooming or about to bloom, and there are more buds waiting to bloom.The buds that have broken through the bracts are all red, but the hibiscus in full bloom is pink, white and red.I checked the plant book and said that the concentration of anthocyanins in the petals of hibiscus changes due to different light intensities. Those that open in the morning are white, then those that open are pink, and those that open in the afternoon are red.For this reason, hibiscus is also known as "colored hibiscus".Someone told me on Weibo that the same hibiscus is white in the morning, then pink, then red, three times a day.This is really beyond my observational experience.Or, somewhere else, there is such a mysterious and enchanting variety.In my observation, although a tree has several kinds of flowers and colors, I have never seen such a situation that it changes three times a day, or blooms at different times.There are three hibiscus plants in the side yard downstairs of my house. For several days in a row, I was tired of facing the computer, so I went downstairs once. There were at least five or six times a day, and I did not see the discoloration scene mentioned in the book.It's white when you get up early, and it's still white at night.It is red when the sun is setting, and it is also red when the sun is shining.But I see two scenarios as a result.One day, the blooming hibiscus will rotate with the sun like a sunflower, so as to turn its unfolded petals and yellow dense stamens towards the sun.When the sun sinks into the jagged sky formed by the buildings, the blooming petals close slightly, and when the sun rises the next day, they open again.

The city of Chengdu is destined to have a relationship with Furong.Not only since the Five Dynasties, hibiscus has been regarded as a city flower.Earlier in the Tang Dynasty, there were many paper-making workshops by the Huanhua River, which could make beautiful and delicate paper.Talented Xue Tao wrote on these papers a poem sent by a famous actress to welcome her. In addition to clear words and beautiful sentences, she felt that the medium of writing was not beautiful enough. Using the water from Huanhuaxi, the skin of hibiscus and the juice of hibiscus flowers, colorful and exquisite Xue Tao paper is made, which is specially used to write her passionate poems such as "not tying people with one heart, but tying grass with one heart in emptiness".

This is also a profound elegant rhyme she left for this city called "Rong". For this reason, one day a friend set up a dinner party and was in Huanhuaxi Park. I arrived early on purpose to go to the park to see the hibiscus flowers there.Although the blooming ones now are definitely not the ones that Xue Meiren was menstruating back then, but think about it, this is the place where she menstruates and cooperates with craftsmen to make paper. After all, her mood is slightly different from what she saw elsewhere. It is a pity that Xue Tao's note has been lost.I remember that in the depths of the bamboo forest in Wangjianglou Park next to Sichuan University, I saw a small souvenir kiosk selling Xue Taojian.It's just an ordinary eight-line paper with some dark patterns.In the machine age, the delicacy and affection of handwork have long been forgotten.

What is even more regrettable is that although hibiscus can be seen everywhere in today's Chengdu city, the forests and patches are no longer visible.This beautiful native plant is not only rooted in the natural habitat, but also deeply rooted in the historical memory of the city.Now it is separated by more and more introduced plants.I have nothing against introducing plants.First, those plants have their own unique beauty, and second, in this era of increasingly serious pollution, some imported plants appear to be more robust.But for a city, the physical beauty is one aspect, while the spiritual and cultural, and plants related to collective memory should still become the main theme of the landscape. The ancient book "Changwuzhi" said: "Furong should be planted on the bank of the pool, and it is better to be near the water."With the reflection of water and flower colors, "Zhaoshui Furong" has always been regarded as an ultimate beauty.Chengdu has a lot of water. If in this season, a certain section of the river bank or a certain lakeside is covered with continuous hibiscus, in this season of withered vegetation, then we will enjoy a precious non-material blessing.I talked about Furong's past and present life on Weibo, with one or two photos of hibiscus flowers, and people in Chengdu with me came to ask where to go to see Furong.According to my observation, the ability of anti-pollution of hibiscus tree should also be good.In the city, there are several kinds of tree species with broad leaves, and the leaves are covered with dust and grease, which makes people unbearable to look at.The leaves of hibiscus are as big as the palm of your hand, and dust will accumulate on the leaves, but it can be cleaned after a heavy rain.At least I haven't seen her leaf rags full of oil stains—for example, the leaves of camellia have a super oil-collecting function, and the oil stains on them can be so thick that the true color of the leaves cannot be seen clearly. In an increasingly polluted environment, hibiscus is really a tree that can make the city look clean.A tree with an inner cleansing spirit.I make this exclamation because of the peculiar way in which hibiscus flowers have been observed to wither.Many times, when I went under a tree full of flowers, I could not see the scattered petals on the ground, but only shriveled flower buds, which lost their pink and tender red color, first turned into the color of withered grass, and then turned into soil s color.At that time, I wondered, because there are too many flower buds, in order to make more open space, must some flower buds wither quietly before they open?Even so, the tree should be covered with withered petals.In order to clarify this problem, I specially marked the hibiscus flowers downstairs.Two or three days later, I confirmed that when these blooming flowers withered, the petals did not fall down as usual, but the pistils became swollen seeds, and the flowers just slowly closed the petals , changed back to the shape of a bud.Of course, there are still obvious differences from the real flower buds: firstly, there is no green bract package, and moreover, the "red" in the Tang poem "the red calyx in the mountains" has disappeared. If there are still some remaining flower colors, That is also the general resounding red. I brought home a dozen of these fallen flowers and dissected them one by one to see if the yellow stamens in the middle had turned into seeds during the brief opening for a few days.Those pistils are merely wilted, and there is no message of a seed in each withered flower.In the long history of plant evolution, the real purpose of the emergence of flowering plants is not to please our eyes, but to bear seeds and reproduce the population.Perhaps human intervention has changed everything.During this period of time, every time I went to the wild, I observed carefully, but I didn't find any wild hibiscus.They just appear in places where there are people, and they are planted, grown, and bloomed by cuttings. Today is November 16th, the sky is sunny after the rain, and the temperature has returned to 20 degrees.Going out for a walk again, I saw that the tree hibiscus was still open.It's just that the flowers on the tree are already very sparse.Looking closely at the branches, there are no buds waiting to open.I think, when all these hibiscus bloom, the real winter will come.