What flowers bloom in spring? Which flowers bloom the earliest?
Spring generally begins with the Start of Spring (Lichun), so which flowers bloom? Which flowers bloom the earliest? Here is a detailed summary:
What flowers bloom in spring?
Narcissus. Winter jasmine. Primrose. Daphne. Camellia. White magnolia. Purple magnolia. Viburnum. Clivia. Crabapple. Peony. Chinese peony. Lilac. Azalea. Western azalea. Cherry blossom. Michelia figo. Rose. Redbud. Kerria. Weigela. Forsythia. Yunnan jasmine. Scotch broom. Cyclamen. Phalaenopsis. Dendrobium. Hyacinth. Tulip. Iris. Calla lily. Calendula. Crinum. Hippeastrum. Wax begonia. Fuchsia. Begonia maculata. Geranium. Cineraria. Corn poppy. Snapdragon. Verbena. Petunia. Peach blossom, plum blossom, pear blossom, winter jasmine, lily
Which flowers bloom the earliest?
(1) The Twenty-four Flower-Signal Winds
The flower-signal wind is the wind that comes in response to the flowering season. It runs from Minor Cold to the following Grain Rain (before the Start of Summer), a total of four months. According to Yuhai: “Five days make one hou, three hou make one qi.” Four months contain eight solar terms, twenty-four hou, and one hundred and twenty days. Every five days brings one flower-signal wind; the twenty-four hou thus have twenty-four kinds of flowers that bloom in response to the wind signals, hence the name “the twenty-four flower-signal winds.”
The Minor Cold solar term begins on January 6 or 7 of the solar calendar; Grain Rain falls on April 20 or 21, and the Grain Rain solar term lasts fifteen days, ending on the day before the Start of Summer, which is May 5 or 6 of the solar calendar. The Records of the Seasons of Jing and Chu says: “In Jiangnan, from early spring (which should be deep winter) to early summer, every five days brings one wind period, called the flower-signal wind. The plum blossom wind comes first, the chinaberry blossom wind last, twenty-four in all, marking the end of cold.”
According to Jiao's Brush Notes: “Minor Cold: first hou, plum blossom; second hou, camellia; third hou, narcissus. Great Cold: first hou, daphne; second hou, orchid; third hou, symplocos. Start of Spring: first hou, winter jasmine; second hou, cherry; third hou, magnolia. Rain Water: first hou, rapeseed flower; second hou, apricot blossom; third hou, plum blossom. Awakening of Insects: first hou, peach blossom; second hou, kerria; third hou, rose. Spring Equinox: first hou, crabapple; second hou, pear blossom; third hou, magnolia. Pure Brightness: first hou, paulownia flower; second hou, wheat flower; third hou, willow catkin. Grain Rain: first hou, peony; second hou, small white rose; third hou, chinaberry blossom. When the flowers finish blooming, it is the Start of Summer.”
Now, the three hou of Minor Cold have passed, and Great Cold is about to pass as well. The Start of Spring falls on February 4; its three hou span fifteen days, with winter jasmine, cherry, and magnolia (xin yi) blooming in response to the three flower-signal winds.
(2) Winter Jasmine Braving the Cold and Snow
Winter jasmine is a deciduous small shrub, three to four chi tall, with slender drooping branches forming an arch, resembling a trailing habit; opposite nodes bear small branches, each branch with three leaves; the flowers are yellow and open before the leaves in early spring. The Manual of Flowers and Grasses says: “It blooms at the start of spring, hence the name.” The Guangqunfangpu says: “Though a herbaceous flower, it is the first to adorn the spring scenery.” Song dynasty poet Yan Shu wrote in Winter Jasmine: “It defies early spring to bloom, and should mock the other flowers for being late.” Zhao Shixia's poem Qingping Yue says: “Delicate and dainty, it vies to bloom early in spring,” and “Eagerly it goes first to welcome spring.” Both praise its flowering-season trait of blooming at the start of spring. Among the ancients who wrote of winter jasmine, the poem that best uses the flower to express ambition is by Han Qi of the Northern Song. Han once served as jinglueshi of Shaanxi, and together with deputy commissioner Fan Zhongyan led troops stationed at Yan'an Prefecture to halt the invasion of the Western Xia's Yuan Hao. At that time a ballad on the frontier said: “With one Han in the army, the Western Xia tremble with fear; with one Fan in the army, the Western Xia are frightened out of their wits.” Han Qi was greatly relied upon by Emperor Renzong of Song. In the third year of Jiayou he entered the Zhongshu as chancellor. When some people envied him, Han saw winter jasmine blooming in the east hall of the Zhongshu and wrote Winter Jasmine in the East Hall of the Zhongshu: “Over the railing its slender green branches hang long, braving snow and cold it splits open tender yellow; welcoming spring is not for its own contentment, but to let a hundred flowers and a thousand blossoms freely spread fragrance.” The lines suggest that his serving as chancellor was not for his own “contentment,” but truly to let a hundred flowers and a thousand blossoms freely bloom in fragrance. “A hundred flowers” stands for the hundred officials, “a thousand blossoms” for the thousands upon thousands of common households, and the entrustment is profound, making it truly a fine work on winter jasmine. Lu You's Bu Suan Zi: Ode to the Plum Blossom says: “With no mind to strive for spring, it lets the other flowers envy as they will.” Though it too uses the flower to express ambition, it carries a touch of solitary self-admiration, and does not reach the loftiness of Han Qi's ode to winter jasmine.
But winter jasmine is, after all, an herbaceous flower. The Materia Medica says “households plant it everywhere,” and the Qunfangpu also says “household gardens plant much of it.” It can be seen that winter jasmine is only planted in garden plots and flower beds, rarely potted, and seldom appreciated. Liu Chang, who served during Emperor Renzong of Song as zhizhigao (a senior secretary of the Hanlin Academy, responsible for drafting the emperor's edicts), could also be counted as having welcomed “spring.” But soon afterward he was demoted to prefect of Yangzhou. Liu Chang expressed his feelings through winter jasmine: “Yellow flowers and verdant vines no one cares for, it vainly gains the worldly name of welcoming spring.”
(3) Cherries Like Pearls, Blossoms Like Snow
The second five days of the Start of Spring is the hou of cherry blossom. Cherry is a deciduous tree, also called yingtao or hantao. The Lushi Chunqiu says: “Cherry, held in the beak of the oriole, hence also called hantao (held peach).” The Bencao Gangmu says: “The cherry tree is not very tall, and in early spring it opens white flowers, with dense blossoms like snow. The leaves are round, with pointed tips and fine teeth, and the fruit grows dozens to a branch.”
Cherry blossoms open five days after the Start of Spring, before the leaves, white as snow. If a thousand trees in a garden bloom together, it is more beautiful than a heavy snowfall. Tang poet Liu Yuxi wrote in Enjoying Cherry Blossoms with Letian: “Thousands and thousands of cherry branches, shining like a snowy sky.” Wei Zhuang's Cherry Tree: “I remember when they first opened, snow covered the branches, and with bees and butterflies they moved bearing flowers.” Yuan poet Guo Yi's Yangchun Song also says: “Willow color is green enough to grasp, cherry blossoms' snow is not yet dry.” Ming poet Wu Guolun's Cherry Blossom: “In the imperial garden the cherry trees, their flowers bloom to be viewed as snow.” The cherry fruit only ripens in the third lunar month, colored vermilion or deep purple. Emperor Xuan of Liang in his Cherry Rhapsody called it the “fruit of rosy complexion,” and Emperor Jianwen of Liang wrote in a poem “dewdrops dot and lift the vermilion fruit”; Tang poet Wang Wei wrote “from the imperial palace red cherries emerge at the upper railing,” and Du Fu wrote “the cherries of Western Shu are red of themselves”; Song poet Wen Tong wrote “a plate of jade with red” (that is, red agate), and Dai Fugu wrote “orangutan blood mixed with jade liquid,” all praising the fruit as being like a “rosy complexion.” A few cherry fruits are also white in color. Li Bai's White Cherry says: “In the red silk sleeve it is clearly seen, but on the white jade plate it seems not there.” Wei Zhuang's White Cherry: “A few plants were set before the Queen Mother's steps, and outside the crystal curtain they seem not there.” This says that the white jade plate and crystal curtain and the white cherry are all white in color, so at first glance they seem unseen.
Since ancient times the cherry has enjoyed the favor of emperors and literati. The Book of Rites, Monthly Ordinances: “Present the hantao as an offering, first to the ancestral temple.” Xiu means to offer food; it says that in offering cherries to the ancestors, they must first be presented in the main hall. Emperor Hui of the Western Han presented cherries to the ancestral temple (Records of the Grand Historian, Biography of Shusun Tong). Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han feasted his ministers on a moonlit night at Zhaoyuan, serving cherries on a red jade plate; viewed under the moon, the plate and the cherries were the same color, and all the ministers laughed, saying it was an empty plate (Dongguan Han Records). Emperor Zhongzong of Tang toured the Fanglin Garden, and civil officials of the fifth rank and above, on horseback, took pleasure in picking cherries with their mouths (Old Book of Tang, Annals of Zhongzong). For newly successful jinshi in the Tang dynasty, the emperor would by custom hold a grand banquet at the Qujiang Pool Garden. In the fourth year of Qianfu of Emperor Xizong, the jinshi Liu Tan passed the examination and sent people to buy dozens of cherry trees to set at the banquet, gathering the high officials in a great assembly, where each person ate several sheng, and even the drivers of the carriages got their fill (Tang Zhiyan). From then until the Qing dynasty, those who passed the jinshi examination especially valued the cherry banquet. Yuan poet Gong Shitai wrote: “After the attendant has finished attending the cherry banquet, he sends the yellow gate to deliver two baskets more.” Qing poet Yuan Mei's Suiyuan Shihua: “The Prime Minister of Liyang, a jinshi of the gengchen year before Kangxi, went again to the cherry banquet.” Later the cherry banquet also referred to elegant gatherings of literati. For example, Gong Zizhen's Dian Jiang Chun: “In the tall tower the cherry banquet is specially opened.”
(4) The Dream Brush Grows Flowers as Magnolia Blooms
The flower signal of the third hou of the Start of Spring is magnolia (wangchun). Wangchun is also called xinyi or mubi. It is a deciduous tree, several zhang tall. When the flower first emerges from the branch tip, it is white with purple (there are also peach-red and purple), and the bud is half a cun long and pointed like a brush tip, hence it is also called mubi flower (brush flower). The Bencao Gangmu quotes Chen Zangqi: “When it first sprouts it is like a brush tip; northerners call it mubi, southerners call it yingchun.” Note: it should be wangchun. Winter jasmine is snow-colored and is the first hou of the Start of Spring; wangchun is white with purple and is the third hou of the Start of Spring, opening ten days later. Thus Song writer Hu Zai's Tiaoxi Yuyin Conghua says: “Mubi (wangchun) and yingchun are naturally two kinds.” The Huajing explicitly states: “Xinyi, one name mubi, one name wangchun.”
When poets write of xinyi, they mostly take its flower shape as being like a brush touching ink. Later Shu poet Ouyang Jiong's Xinyi Flower says: “Holding its tip it newly spits tender red buds, its force seems to write on the void against the morning glow; it must be that the Jade Emperor once threw down his brush, and falling to the ground it grew into flowers.” It says the flower holds a brush tip, and its force seems to take the sky as paper (its force seems to write on the void); and imagines it as a flower grown from the Jade Emperor's thrown-down brush. Ming writers Chen Jiru and Zhang Xin, in writing of xinyi, further wove the xinyi brush into the story of Jiang Yan's dream brush growing flowers. Chen's poem says: “Spring rain dampens the window gauze, xinyi casts its shadow aslant; it once glimpsed Jiang's dream brush, and every stroke suddenly grows flowers.” Zhang's poem says: “In a dream I once saw the brush grow flowers, and the brocade words still boast of their appearance; who believes that within the flower there is a brush, whose tip is just about to spit out spring glow?” According to the History of the Southern Dynasties and the Book of Liang: Jiang Yan had a five-colored brush, and so was good at poetry and prose. One day he dreamed of Guo Pu, who said: “I have a brush that has been with you for many years; you may return it to me.” Jiang Yan reached into his bosom and returned the colorless brush to Guo. From then on, when he wrote poetry and prose, there were no more fine lines or good works, and people of the time said “Jiang Lang's talent is exhausted.” Thereafter the five-colored brush was often used to compare literary talent. Li Shangyin wrote: “If not for the Jiang family's five-colored brush, what could be done with the flowers of a whole county of Heyang!” The History of Song, Biography of Fan Zhi records: “On the night when Fan Zhi was born, his mother dreamed that a spirit gave her a five-colored brush, and at nine years old he could write compositions.”
The Start of Spring falls on February 4. The five days from the 4th to the 8th are the hou of winter jasmine; the five days from the 9th to the 13th are the hou of cherry (hantao) blossom; the five days from the 14th to the 18th (the first day of the first lunar month) are the hou of magnolia (xinyi, mubi) blossom. Thus, while idly speaking of the twenty-four flower-signal winds, I wrote Start of Spring Flower Signals: Three Flowers Bloom.