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During the Lantern Festival, everything is bright red and noisy. Since ancient times, there has been a custom of hanging lanterns in the first month of the lunar year and watching lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first month.

Since the Han Dynasty, there has been a custom of "the Han people worship Taiyi from dusk to dawn", using lights that never stop day and night to worship and exorcise evil spirits and pray for blessings. Fu Xuan of the Jin Dynasty recorded in "The New Year's Day Meeting" that in the first month of the year, "the night lights flickered to spread the light, and the bright lights were like fire trees." The Tang Dynasty went a step further and lifted the curfew on the night of the Lantern Festival, allowing citizens to enjoy the lights all night long; it was even more lively during the Ming Dynasty. Women wore red jackets and white skirts and "walked away all diseases" during the Lantern Festival, passing through the city and crossing the bridge until they reached the city gate, touching the copper nails on the gate, and praying for blessings and diseases.

Chinese Lanterns | Pixabay

Lanterns come in many shapes and sizes, including big red lanterns, palace lanterns, revolving lanterns, river lanterns... The plant kingdom also has some lovely shapes that can serve as lanterns. They are both beautiful and gorgeous, and some are even delicious.

The most romantic girl

The most famous and lantern-like plant is Physalis alkekengi, also known as Luoshenzhu, Mushi, and Red Girl. Some people believe that the "red pearl grass" in Lin Daiyu's previous life refers to it. Physalis alkekengi is a herbaceous plant that does not grow tall. The ripe berries are the size of cherries, hanging round and showing a beautiful orange-yellow color when ripe. The outside of the fruit is wrapped in an enlarged peach-shaped orange-red calyx. When the fruit is ripe, the calyx will not fall off, just like the shape of a lantern. When the calyx dries up and shows veins in winter and spring, the whole fruit looks more like an exquisite gauze lantern, "like the fire of a white gauze lantern."

The English name of the nightshade is Chinese lantern, which shows that there is an international consensus that the nightshade looks like a lantern | TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋) / Flickr

In the Qing Dynasty novel "Flowers in the Mirror", there is such a plot: all the female officials gathered together to compete with each other for fun. You gave a flower or plant as the first couplet, and I gave a flower or plant to match the second couplet, such as Xanthium sibiricum and Pulsatilla dasyphylla, and Guanyin willow and Podocarpus macrophylla. A girl Qiongzhi gave the first couplet "lantern grass", which is another name for Physalis in "Compendium of Materia Medica"; another girl Tingting said: "I gave the other name of Gelsemium elegans, 'torch flower'." At that time, there was a saying that the Lantern Festival originated from the Torch Festival (using fire to drive away wild animals and insects), and the lantern grass matched the torch flower, which was very neat.

Physalis is a plant of the Solanaceae family. I have never eaten its fruit, but ancient books say it is sweet and sour. Xu Yikui recorded in "Records of the Forbidden City of the Yuan Dynasty" that Physalis was transplanted into the palace for its ornamental value: "There is a wild fruit in front of the Golden Palace, named Red Girl, with a red capsule hanging outside, hollow inside with seeds, like red beads, sweet and sour taste, edible, around the walls, fragrant with green grass, and lovely." The tradition of planting ornamental Physalis continued from the Yuan Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, and also appeared in the writings of Nalan Xingde.

The dried calyx is like a veil covering the fruit | Pixabay

Physalis can also be seen on the Korean Peninsula and the islands of Japan. The famous Ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai once painted a picture called "The Seven Fashions of the Wind and Rainbow: Red Girl", which depicts a woman in the Edo period who has just finished washing and combing her hair with a red girl fruit in her mouth. In Japan, in addition to being edible, Physalis can also be used as a fruit whistle. If you carefully remove the core of the physalis fruit and press it on your tongue, you can blow it to make a sound. This Edo beauty may also be blowing a whistle.

Beautiful and fiery lantern flowers

In addition to Physalis, there are many other plants named after lanterns. Hibiscus schizopetalus, native to Africa, is also called chandelier hibiscus or chandelier flower. This shrub of the Malvaceae family has red petals that are cracked and curled upward, like palace lanterns made of red silk, and the yellow pollen on the drooping stamens looks like yellow silk ribbons swaying in the wind. The beauty of chandelier hibiscus makes it popular among flower lovers. Buy a pot during the Lantern Festival, and you can decorate your balcony and courtyard with small lanterns.

Beautiful lobed hibiscus | Brigitte ALLIOT / Wikimedia Commons

Another "cape fruit" is the yellow capsicum, also known as the Habanero pepper. Although its scientific name is Capsicum chinense and its common name is also Chinese pepper, it is native to South America. As a member of the Solanaceae family, the Habanero pepper looks very similar to the calyx of the nightshade; but don't think it is as sour and sweet as the nightshade. The spiciness of the Habanero pepper is very fierce, and the super pepper varieties with more than 2 million Scoville spiciness are all from this species.

Lovely bell pepper | Erika Mňahončáková et al. / Acta Scientiarum Polonorum, Technologia Alimentaria (2021)

The last lantern flower is also the most romantic, the Lamprocapnos spectabilis, also known as the hanging bell or bellflower. This lantern flower comes from the poppy family and is a native plant of China. The stamens hang under the pink heart-shaped flowers, like the shape of a purse. The Lamprocapnos spectabilis was introduced to Europe and the United States and became a popular garden plant. Its English name is even more poignant - bleeding heart.

The day before the Lantern Festival this year is Valentine’s Day. I wish everyone’s heart is filled with happiness and no more hurt.

Peony | Pixabay

Author: Ǒphelia

Edit: Red Queen

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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