Introduction and Appreciation of the Cymbidium goeringii 'Xiaoxiang Xianzi' Variety

Discovered in Anhui in 2003, excavated, selected, bred and named by Wang Yonghong.

Specific discovery story: On a weekend in late autumn of 2003, as usual, I (Wang Yonghong) took my small hoe and set off early with a fellow orchid enthusiast. The mountain we were going to today is called Zhenlongdi, where the terrain is steep and dangerous, the mountain valleys are shrouded in mist and clouds, and there are quite a lot of Cymbidium goeringii on the mountain. For those with flower buds, we looked at the buds; for those without, we judged by leaf shape. We immersed ourselves completely in the world of orchids. Before we knew it, it was nearly noon. When the two of us met up, we had found nothing all morning. So we sat together and had apples with instant noodles as lunch. Afterward, the two of us split up to search again, I went east, he went west. I saw a bamboo grove ahead. I do not know who had said it, but someone had mentioned that good flowers might come from bamboo groves, so I went into the bamboo grove to search. On a slightly steep back slope, I found a Cymbidium goeringii like this: leaf shape semi-drooping, leaf texture thick and hard, leaf color dark green, leaf margin serrations relatively coarse, three shoots in total. My first impression was that this plant was good, and I felt a bit happy. When I brushed aside the rotting leaves and looked, there was actually a flower bud. On closer inspection: the flower bud was spindle-shaped, the bud sheath thin and hard, with grain-like translucent marks clearly visible. I was overjoyed, thinking it might be something quite good, so I carefully dug it out. But because it grew in the bamboo grove, the bamboo roots were very dense, and several roots still got broken during digging. In the first lunar month of the following year, after returning from seeing an orchid exhibition in Nanjing, this flower was in full bloom. Looking at it, sure enough, as expected, it had bloomed into a very elegant plum-shaped narcissus-type flower. In 2007, it finally bloomed again. I thought that since this flower came from a bamboo grove, with an elegant flower shape, carrying a bit of toughness within its delicacy, and with extraordinary bearing, I therefore named it 'Xiaoxiang Xianzi'. I do not know whether I have dishonored Daiyu's immortal name.