Luojing gets country's first 'mother's flower' park
Participants at a daylily seminar check nearly 100 species of daylilies at the Fengxian campus of the Shanghai Institute of Technology on Saturday.
China's first specialized park for daylily, known as "mother's flower" and which dates back to Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), is planned in the city's northern Baoshan District to attract tourists from across the Yangtze River Delta.
The Mother's Flower Culture Park will feature over 100 species of daylilies, which represent filial piety in traditional Chinese culture, and will be developed in Tangwan Village in Luojing Town.
The 34,000-square-meter park in the city's major agricultural town is expected to become a new tourism attraction and boost the incomes of nearby villagers, the township government said on Saturday.
Tangwan has been listed as one of the city's nine "demonstration" villages for implementing the central government's "rural revitalization" plan.
The national strategic program from 2018 to 2022 aims to promote the revitalization of villages and speed up the modernization of agricultural and rural areas.
While the carnation is widely regarded as a symbol of filial piety elsewhere, China has its own "mother flower" the millenia-old daylily, according to the township government.
Ancient poets began celebrating motherhood with daylily in their poems in the Tang and Song (960-1279) dynasties.
Visitors take photos of daylilies at the Fengxian campus of the Shanghai Institute of Technology on Saturday.
Daylily, native to China, has a large number of species which are easy to plant, said a professor with the Shanghai Institute of Technology.
To offer professional guidance on the daylily culture park, the first national seminar about the culture and cultivation of daylily was held at the Fengxian campus of the institute on Saturday.
Nearly 100 species of daylilies collected from home and abroad were exhibited at the seminar, jointly hosted by the town and the plantation and ancient tree commission of the China Society of Landscape Architecture.
The culture park will not only showcase the flowers but also highlight related ancient poems and paintings as well as the flower's wide applications in landscape building and water and soil conservation, according to a blueprint released at the seminar.
Villagers of Tangwan will be encouraged to plant daylilies and develop tourism merchandise based on the flower, town authorities said.
Dried daylily buds are among the most notable edible flowers in China. In the country’s poverty alleviation drive, planting the flower has become an effective means to bring income to farmers in the northwest.
And Tangwan Village near the mouth of the Yangtze River features vast and fertile farmlands, forests, ponds and 20 rivers. The rice it produces has won major awards for six consecutive years.
Over 100 species of daylilies from both home and abroad are cultivated at the Fengxian campus of Shanghai Institute of Technology.
