Chapter 17 The sixteenth chapter Gardenia is lonely, beautiful and clean, and it is quiet and fragrant in summer and cold in summer.

May 27.night. Someone in Taiwan brought high mountain tea to a friend in Chengdu. So there was a drink.Go out and have a drink with this tea friend.Just after the shower, I went home drunk, walked lightly across the yard, and was greeted by a strong fragrance.I know that the gardenias are blooming. Two days ago, in the shrub that glowed green on the half-prostrate hard branches of the ginkgo tree, the white-green flower buds in the shape of brush heads had just erected, and I thought it would take several days to open.But just at this inadvertent time, these gardenias bloomed quietly. Yang Wanli chanted this kind of flower, and the most appropriate sentence is to describe the present moment:

No wind suddenly nose. I stopped, maybe I heard this line of the poem, and I made a gesture of listening intently.In the dim light, there is really no wind, and there are a few frogs croaking in the pond in the courtyard, and the fragrance suddenly hits again. I smile. The fragrance of laughing flowers should be smelled, but it just made a gesture of listening.I really heard that soul-stirring fragrance coming with light steps and misty steps. Turn a corner and move towards the gardenias that bloom in the dark night after the rain.On the small slope leading to the parking lot, the ginkgo tree stands straight and pierces the night sky. Under the tree, there are a few clusters of white that seem to be rippling, which is the light emitted by the most dense bush of gardenia in the courtyard when it is in full bloom.

Among these lights and shadows, the ones full of subtle fragrance are the gardenias that bloomed the first time this year.The night, which is not thick because of the light, is thickened because of this fragrance. May 28.morning. Last year, I traveled to South Africa, and I came home late at night from the airport with my luggage. As soon as I entered the yard, I could smell the fragrance of this flower.It was June and the flowers were a little different.It's not as clear as it is now, but with excessive sweetness, the taste of fermented fruit wine. That is the smell of gardenias when they bloom to wither.

When I got home last night, I turned on the computer and checked the photo files.According to the date of last year, it was June 23rd.I remember getting up the next morning when I went home last year, and I couldn’t wait to take a few photos, but only a few scattered flowers with yellowed petals were taken.This year, the night when gardenias first bloom is May 27th.This time last year, I was about to go abroad to the remote Horn of Africa.I waited for the gardenias to bloom before the long journey and waited until the date of June.Among the half-creeping green leaves, light green flower buds stood up one after another, but they refused to bloom for a long time.This year is different. Those buds in the shape of brush heads have just emerged for a few days, and they bloomed quietly on this night after the rain.

This year, there was a lot of speculation in the media about the millennium cold, and then they all came out to laugh at it as a nonsense rumor.There are also merchants stocking up on down jackets crying and condemning meteorologists for losing money.But soon after the media refuted the rumors, the winter really turned cold.One of the results, of course, is that almost all flowers open later than last year, but this gardenia opened earlier than last year. When I get home, the first thing to do is charge the camera.When I woke up in the morning, the sky was gloomy.At eleven o'clock, the sky was still not clear, so I had to go downstairs with my camera and take pictures for a while.And tried a newly bought lens.This 80-400 zoom lens was originally prepared to take pictures of those out-of-reach flowers when I went to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in midsummer.Now use the telephoto for close-up shots, because the depth of field compression of this lens also has some special effects. I still have to go out on June 1st. I think in the next few days, there should be sunny days and good light, which can make these beautiful flowers brighter.

Reminds me of Rilke's poem: "Give me a moment! I will love these things more than anyone else until they match you and become vast. All I want is seven days, seven days that no one has yet recorded, seven pages of solitude. " May 29. This morning, the sky has cleared up, but I have to go out to run errands. Passing by the equipment store I often go to, I bought two polarizers, just to deal with the reflections on the flowers under the strong sunlight radiation.When I hurried home in the afternoon, the sky was cloudy again.More gardenias raced to bloom.So I had to sit in front of the computer and write down these words.

At this time, the store bell rang.I'm a part-time worker in a cleaning company.The two middle-aged women each pinned two gardenias on their bodies.As they walked, the faint fragrance spread around the room and drifted into the study from time to time.In my eyes, these two women who like to gossip while they work seem to be kinder. I asked one of them for one, and put it in front of my eyes.Pull out the flora to take a closer look. The description in the book is not particularly detailed: "Flowers are solitary on branches or leaf axils, white, fragrant; calyx green, cylindrical; garden saucer-shaped, with 5 or more lobes." But for me, a new plant It is also a useful guide for learners.I think of the situation in the flower garden. If they were not born at the top of the branches, that is, at the top of each branch, the buds and flowers would not emerge so strikingly above the dense green leaves.The petals are naturally white and thick - botanical books describe this as "succulent" - but it seems to me that there should be a higher metaphor.The petals are not only white and flawless, but also have dark lines like cotton, but are more delicate and smooth than brocade.The calyx—that is, the layer of bracts that wrap the flower when it is a bud is indeed green. When it is still a bud, the sepals are stretched by the expanding flowers inside and become thinner and thinner until the green calyx is exposed. The petals are becoming more and more clear and crystal white.Until the moment when the calyx is split.If there is a camera to capture the opening process of the gardenia, the beauty must be breathtaking.The flower stalk is almost two centimeters long, and the flowers are unfolded on this long flower stalk.Because of this long stem, the book says it is "saucer-shaped".For such a beautiful flower, this metaphor is too low-level and not quite accurate.This flower with a diameter of about three centimeters has three layers of petals.Each layer has six petals, which is different from the "split 5" mentioned in the book.This point is accurately written in a poem from the Song Dynasty: "Mingyan leans on her charming and saves six outs". "Six out" means to unfold six petals.These petals hold out the most important parts of a flower: pistil and stamen.I have seen a photo of an American botanist.An old man is looking at a flower with a magnifying glass.A book written by a foreigner describing Mediterranean plants that I just read also emphasizes that a magnifying glass is a must-have tool for viewing flowers.I think this is to facilitate careful observation of the delicately structured stamens.I didn't prepare this thing, so I had to be as vague as the plant book at hand.I only saw six thin, brown-black males surrounded by a bright yellow pistil, looking a bit ashamed.On the other hand, the pistil of Gardenia is bright in color and grows into a stalk, which is like the exciting point of this flower.If the flower is going to make a sound, it must be the panting it elicits.It seems a bit erotic to write like this.But the opening of flowers is a grand feast for the plants themselves.If you want to calm down, you can quote Yang Wanli's poem again:

The lone capital is beautiful and the outside is clean, and it is quiet and fragrant in summer and cold. It's raining again, and the cold is coming, and the gardenias look like the one in the poem again. May 30. Another night of rain. The elevated temperatures of the previous days have returned.The highest temperature today is 24 degrees.Someone who made a documentary came and asked me to talk about a writer who passed away 20 years ago.When it comes to the middle, I feel cold, so I find my coat and put it on.Send them away, come back, and see more gardenias blooming in the yard.A few more photos were taken.Lovely with dew, but still expecting sunshine.The white color of gardenia should be more eye-catching in bright light.But there is no way.Tomorrow, I am going to attend the award ceremony of the Xiao Hong Literature Award established to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Xiao Hong's birth.

When I came back, I read some more about Gardenia. Therefore, I don’t want to omit gardenia in this composition of capital phenology, because it is a native plant that has adorned the lives of people in Shu for a long time.Its floral fragrance has been lingering in the city of Chengdu for at least a thousand years.I think, when the flowers bloom, they have been adorned by women in their hair and hung in front of their lapels like gems for thousands of years.There are poems to prove it.Liu Yuxi in the Tang Dynasty: The spring of Shu is over, and the peaches are beginning to bloom. Yuetao is the former name of Gardenia in Tang poetry.What it talks about is "phenology"-the season when the flower blooms.When the spring flowers in the Sichuan Basin are exhausted for the first time, gardenias will bloom.In other words, the opening of gardenias announces the arrival of summer.

The herbal book "Ben Cao Tu Jing" of the Song Dynasty also said: "Gardenia, which is found in the south and Xishu prefectures today. The tree is seven or eight feet high, and the leaves are thick and hard like plums." Indeed, the branches of gardenia are hard, and the leaves are also hard. , so it also shows the charming and charming gardenia flowers. When I wrote these words, all the gardenias in the yard were in full bloom, and the one that bloomed earlier showed signs of wilting. 2011, May, 31 in Harbin