Zihao, Zixuan, Zirui... The "Zi" that parents like to name their children turns out to be the King of Wood!

Recently, the Public Security Bureau of Foshan City, Guangdong Province announced the popular names for newborns in Foshan in 2021. "Zihao", "Zixuan" and "Zirui" ranked in the top three in the boy's name list. The word "Zi" has won the crown for five consecutive years.

Ranking of names in Foshan, Guangdong in the past five years | Weibo @People's Network "Zi" appears so frequently in names that one almost forgets that it is a tree. In fact, Zi tree was not only planted and used by ancient people very early, but was also called "King of Wood". It has always occupied a place in Chinese culture. I wonder how much parents who love this word know about this word that is integrated into Chinese culture?

Noodles growing on trees?

Catalpa ovata is a tree of the Bignoniaceae family, native to China. The scientific name of the genus Catalpa is Catalpa, which comes from the Indian language and is the common name of the Indians for the plants of the genus Catalpa distributed in North America. The specific epithet ovata in the scientific name of Catalpa refers to the oval shape of its leaves.

Catalpa trees can grow up to 15 meters tall, with single leaves that often have three points at the front. The leaves are almost equal in length and width, and can reach a length of 25 centimeters. The corolla is yellow with two yellow stripes on the inside and purple spots. The most distinctive feature of the catalpa tree is its linear capsules, which can be up to 30 centimeters long and look like noodles hanging on the tree from a distance.

BBC April Fools' Day show "The Spaghetti Tree's Harvest" from 1957 | MySwitzerland / youtube

There are a total of thirteen species of Catalpa, four of which are distributed in China and all of which are endemic to China. Among them, Catalpa, Qiū (C. bungei) and Catalpa fargesii are all widely cultivated. Together with the goldenrod (C. speciosa) introduced from North America, there are four species of Catalpa trees that we can see in cities.

These trees are not difficult to distinguish. We can tell them apart by flower color and inflorescence structure. Catalpa flowers are light yellow, golden catalpa flowers are white, and catalpa and gray catalpa flowers are light red to light purple. As for the difference between catalpa and gray catalpa, the former has fewer branches than the latter, and the secondary branching is simple. Golden catalpa (above) white flowers and catalpa (below) purple flowers | Unknown plants; Qianli Tower

Catalpa grows relatively fast, and its wood is slightly soft, but not fragile and easy to process, so it is often used to make furniture and other utensils. Therefore, people especially like to plant catalpa trees, not only because they provide good shade, but also because their wood can be used to make many daily necessities, which is really unacceptable. The Song Dynasty dictionary "Pí Ya" called catalpa "the king of wood". The Qing Dynasty gardening monograph "Hua Jing" even said that if there is a catalpa tree in the forest, all the trees will bow to it in tribute ("all the trees are bowed inward") - the tribute is nonsense, but it can also show how much the ancients valued this tree. Catalpa trees are now widely planted in the vast area north of the Yangtze River Basin and can be seen in all provinces and regions in the north, but wild catalpa trees are nowhere to be found.

The fact that catalpa can be widely cultivated is also related to its own physiological characteristics. According to research, the rooting ability of catalpa branches is the strongest among all known catalpa plants in China, with an average rooting rate of nearly 95%, twice that of catalpa, and an average number of roots per plant of nearly seven. Moreover, catalpa's drought resistance is much stronger than that of catalpa and other species. In short, catalpa is a very "tough" tree that is easy to grow and survive. Nowadays, people often use catalpa as a rootstock for grafting catalpa and gray catalpa. Yellow flowers of catalpa | Don't know the plant

From literature and art to funerals, everything is handled by one person

The earliest ancient document that records Catalpa is Mencius, in which there is a saying "Catwood craftsman wheel and carriage [yú]". Catalpa craftsman refers to carpenter, because the most commonly processed wood by carpenters at that time was catalpa. Wheel and carriage refers to the person who made wheels and carriages. These two words together mean "people with skills", which is what we call "DIY experts" today.

There are more than one description of catalpa in the Book of Songs. In Xiaoya·Xiaobian, there is a line "Weisang and catalpa, must be respectful and respectful", which means that seeing the mulberry and catalpa planted by parents is like seeing your parents, and you should be respectful and respectful. From this, we can see that people had already started planting catalpa at that time, and listing it on a par with mulberry trees shows that they believed that catalpa trees were of extraordinary value. Catalpa | Peter coxhead / Wikimedia Commons

"Guofeng·Yongfeng·Dingzhifangzhong" says: "Dingzhifangzhong, built in the Chu Palace. Measured by the sun, built in the Chu room. Planted hazelnuts and chestnuts, planted tung trees, zelkova trees and lacquer, and cut down zithers and se." This poem records the story of Duke Wen of Wei moving to Chuqiu. When building the Chu Palace, Duke Wen of Wei planted hazelnuts and chestnuts for food, planted tung trees and zelkova trees, and prepared to cut wood to make musical instruments. Tung refers to the phoenix tree (Firmiana simplex), which is often used to make the upper part of the zither, while zelkova is generally used to make the bottom of the zither, so there is a saying "Tung sky and zelkova earth". As for the role of lacquer trees (Toxicodendron spp.), it is to cut raw lacquer for painting musical instruments. And planting mulberry trees is naturally for raising silkworms to produce silk.

The Book of Rites, Tan Gong Shang, records another use of mulberry, "The emperor's coffin is four layers... two mulberry coffins...", mulberry can be used to make coffins. In ancient times, mulberry was used to make either musical instruments or coffins, both of which were closely related to people's life and death, so it was planted in front of and behind houses and in the fields. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, people have used mulberry and mulberry to refer to their hometown. The process of engraving woodblocks, as seen in Yangzhou Woodblock Printing Museum | Sanlie/Wikimedia Commons

Although movable-type printing was invented in the Song Dynasty, woodblock printing has always been the mainstream in the printing industry due to production costs and preservation. The ancients believed that the wood of the catalpa tree was very good, and there was a saying that "there is no better wood than catalpa", so catalpa wood has another important use: making woodblocks for printing. After the manuscript is written, it will be carved into woodblocks for printing, so book publishing is also called "printing".

Unclear relatives

Wait, are we missing something? What is the "chair" in "Yi Tong Zi Qi" in the Book of Songs? It can't be a chair! Could it be this? | Blackash / Wikimedia Commons

The explanation of "chair" in Erya is "zi", while "Shuowen Jiezi" says "zi, 楸". This brings up a problem. Ancient people's understanding of species was often imprecise, and they often confused different species. According to the textual research of "Chinese Tree Taxonomy", when ancient people said "zi", they often included two plants, 楸 tree and 楸 tree. "Chair" may be 楸 or 楸, and the specific species is unknown.

However, according to ancient documents, as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, at least some ancient people were able to distinguish between catalpa and zelkova. In "Qianfu Lun·Fu Chi", it is mentioned that "catalpa, zelkova, huaibai, huò", which means that catalpa and catalpa were divided into different plants.

Most species of the genus Catalpa are widely cultivated by humans, although some species, such as the golden tree, have small wild populations and narrow distribution. Catalpa has never been found in the wild and is a complete "domestic plant". However, with human cultivation, these species generally do not become extinct.

However, a member of the genus Catalpa in the Caribbean, C. brevipes, is not so lucky. Its distribution area is limited to the islands of Cuba and Haiti. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has rated C. brevipes as vulnerable (VU), and this rating was in 1998. More than 20 years have passed, and the information has not been updated. We don’t know whether the situation of this species is good or bad. On the well-known public science network platform iNaturalist, not even a photo of this species can be found. In a paper published in 2017, it was also mentioned that field surveys and DNA sequencing samples of this species are very scarce, and more in-depth research is needed.

Compared to the highly photographed catalpa, the poor short-stalked catalpa is really unknown. I hope that our efforts to protect wild plants can be extended to these lesser-known species and prevent them from disappearing silently.
Author: I don’t know plants