Growers of the Chongming daffodil, which has a history of over 500 years, revive profitable business
The Chongming daffodil usually has double-layered petals, whereas those grown in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, have single-layered petals. (GAO ERQIANG / XING YI / CHINA DAILY)
With Spring Festival less than a month away, many Chinese people have started to prepare for the traditional celebration by growing a flower－the Chinese daffodil.
Daffodils bloom in early spring, usually coinciding with the most important Chinese festival, which falls on Feb 1 this year.
The Chinese daffodil is one species of the narcissus genus, which usually grows by water and gets its name from a Greek myth about a young man named Narcissus, who rejected all romantic advances and fell in love with his own reflection in the water.
In the West, the flower is also known as the Chinese Sacred Lily. Its Mandarin name, shui xian, which literally translates to "water immortal", gives it a halo of reverence among the literati.
As the festival season nears, matured bulbs are dug out of the soil, cleaned and placed in clear water as a festive decoration for Chinese New Year. For centuries, during the winter, these "immortals" have been kept by Chinese in porcelain vases and placed in prominent areas in the living rooms of wealthy households or the study areas of scholars, where the flower is appreciated for its white and yellow petals, sweet fragrance and beautiful stems.
Fan Chunyan, a flower hobbyist in Shanghai, bought two Chinese daffodil bulbs on Dec 25. She put them on a porcelain plate with water and observes their growth every day.
"I am aiming for a blossom on the day of the Lunar New Year. It has been a fun game for me since childhood," she said. "When it blooms, the fragrance is so mesmerizing that the festival feels incomplete without it."
In Shanghai's Hongqiao Flower Market, vendors have been putting plates of daffodil bulbs on their shelves since early last month.
"Shui xian is one of the bestselling flowers during Spring Festival. It makes a wonderful gift," said one flower vendor in the market. "We mainly sell the bulbs from Zhangzhou, but lately some vendors have been selling the Chongming ones."
During Spring Festival last year, Zhangzhou, a city in Fujian province that produces around 90 percent of the daffodils in the country, sold 16 million bulbs, according to the China Green Times, a newspaper published by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
Farmers at the Shanghai Chongming Narcissus Professional Cooperative arrange Chongming daffodil bulbs in pots for sale. (GAO ERQIANG / XING YI / CHINA DAILY)
Chongming variety
The first batches of this year's Chongming daffodils－cultivated by the Shanghai Chongming Narcissus Professional Cooperative, which is based in the city's Chongming Island district－were delivered to flower shops on Dec 20. Since then, SF Express deliverymen have been coming to the cooperative daily to load up their minivans with boxes of the bulbs.
"The main difference between the Chongming and Zhangzhou daffodil varieties is that ours have double-layered petals," said Shi Kesong, founder of the 33-hectare cooperative. "And unlike Zhangzhou daffodils, the Chongming variety doesn't need to be trimmed to help the flower shoots sprout."
The Chongming daffodil is the only flower from Shanghai to have a national geographical indication certified by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Shi said Chinese have been planting daffodils in Chongming for at least 500 years, according to Shanghai historical texts, but it was not until the early 20th century that planting them went from being just a hobby to a profitable business.
Legend has it that one day, Shi Gulang, a Chongming villager, brought some daffodils with him during a visit to downtown Shanghai. While taking a rest by the roadside, a foreigner asked him about the price of the flowers.
Not speaking English, the villager raised two fingers to indicate 2 cents, but the foreigner gave him $2. As news spread, people on the island started to grow more daffodils and sell them downtown.
In the 1930s, the daffodils from Chongming dominated Shanghai's winter flower market.
"Older people told me that back then, the daily ferry from Chongming Island to Shanghai wouldn't set off without the flowers being loaded onboard," recalled Shi, who was born in 1956 and raised in a well-known daffodil growing family.
Back then, there were four famous families working in the Shanghai flower market: the Zhao family sold chrysanthemums; the Yu family sold carnations; the Lin family sold small bonsai; and the Shi family sold daffodils.
The flower business ground to a halt during the 1960s and 70s because of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), and most farmers turned to other ventures.
In the 1980s, Shi tried to revive his family business but failed because he couldn't find enough good seeds to start again. It takes three years for a seed to bloom, and farmers decided it wasn't worthwhile to keep them.
In 2002, Shi's son, Shi Hao, noticed that the ecological development of Chongming was included in the Shanghai Urban Master Plan (1999-2020), and the district government had started promoting the development of its agriculture and flower industry.
"I encouraged my father to plant Chongming daffodils again," Shi Hao said. "I told him, you have the skills, resources and experience, and if there's anyone capable of reviving the business, it's you."
Shi Kesong (center), founder of the cooperative, works with flower growers to bundle the daffodils. (GAO ERQIANG / XING YI / CHINA DAILY)
The father and son then began visiting former growers to collect seeds and conducted experiments in a 2,000-square-meter field to cultivate the flowers.
It took them seven years to accumulate enough bulbs. They started the cooperative in Xianghua township in 2009, and two years later, they brought their first batch of 30,000 bulbs to market.
"We had some tough years in the beginning, but our development eventually picked up," Shi Hao said. "The local government provided us with a favorable policy and funds to build the production base, and we are planning to further expand the planting area and develop agritourism in the future."
Today, the Shi family has nearly 110,000 sq m of greenhouses and several cold storage units for the bulbs at the plantation. The cold allows the daffodils, which naturally go dormant in summer and bloom in winter, to blossom in different seasons.
The cooperative's daffodils were displayed in a themed garden at the 10th China Flower Expo held in Chongming from May to July last year.
Tracing history
Despite the daffodil's long history of cultivation in China, Xi Wang, a botanist at the Chenshan Botanical Garden in Shanghai, said the flower originates from the Mediterranean Sea region, which covers southern Europe and North Africa.
The first Chinese texts discussing daffodils were written during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). According to the texts, a Persian foreigner, whose Chinese name was Mu Simi, gave Sun Guangxian, an official in Jiangling (known today as Jingzhou, Hubei province), several of the flowers. Sun put them in a jar to appreciate them, according to a study on the origin of Chinese daffodils by Cheng Jie, a professor at Nanjing Normal University.
The flowers were discussed in more Chinese literature from the Song Dynasty (960-1279). During a visit to Jiangling, Huang Tingjian, a calligrapher, poet and painter in that era, received 50 of the flowers from a friend. He wrote a poem describing them as fairies walking on the water, and their fragrance and beauty captivated the city.
During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the daffodils were so popular and widely cultivated that professional growers began to emerge. They developed systematic techniques, sculpting the bulbs so that when they sprouted, the leaves would grow into beautiful, curvy forms.
Daffodils began being widely featured in ancient Chinese artworks, such as paintings depicting a noble lifestyle. Writers often personified the plants and compared their blooming period in winter to that of a strong-willed person enduring life in a harsh environment.
Ancient growers learned techniques to control the flower's blooming period.
"They found that if the buds develop too slowly, the pot could be put in a warmer place to encourage growth," said Xi, the botanist.
These days, botanists have made complete studies on the genetic characteristics of the plant, which will help them develop new and more efficient ways to manipulate its growth and development.
Contact the writers at xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn
