Characteristics and Cultivation Tips of the Cymbidium 'Hongxing Ruidie' Variety

The "discovery" of Hongxing Ruidie also has a bizarre story. 

Yandang Mountain - a famous mountain by the sea, the finest wonder in the world, with beautiful scenery and outstanding people; Yandang Mountain is rich in orchid resources, and the local mountain people have a long history of digging and growing orchids. To this day, villagers in the areas around Yandang Mountain still have the old habit of digging up a few orchid seedlings while gathering firewood or doing farm work and planting them around their houses.

In the northern scenic area of Yandang Mountain there is a cave called Xiangu Cave (Fairy Cave), rising steeply from the ground, with treacherous terrain. There is a saying: "Of the eighteen caves of Yandang, Xiangu is the first." The author visited it some time ago. Inside the cave is a stone stele that records in detail the origin of the cave's name. It is said that in the final years of the Qing Dynasty, there was a woman from Linhai, Taizhou, as beautiful as a flower. A landlord wanted to take her as a concubine, but she refused and fled overnight, escaping to this cave at the border of Yueqing and Huangyan, where she took shelter. Unexpectedly, the landlord pursued her to this place as well. To preserve her chastity, the woman leaped from the top of Xiangu Cave, her life extinguished like fading fragrance, and she became, many years later, butterfly-like flowers blooming one after another. Later this matter reached the imperial court, and the emperor, in admiration of the woman's loyalty and chastity, had this stele erected by imperial order, and the cave became known as Xiangu Cave.

Perhaps it gained the spiritual essence of the fairy, perhaps it is the fairy's incarnation - many butterfly-type flowers were discovered in the wild in the areas around Xiangu Cave, among which Hongxing Ruidie is the most influential and the earliest discovered.

Below Xiangu Cave there is a village called Dayantou Village, backed by mountains and facing water, with a beautiful environment. There was an orchid enthusiast named Pan Hongwang. One day in March 2003, Hongwang was passing by a farming household in the same village when he was involuntarily drawn by wafts of delicate fragrance drifting from somewhere. Looking up, he saw a large pot of Cymbidium in full bloom on the second-floor balcony, giving off fragrance, and from a distance it already looked extraordinary. Going up to look, it turned out to be a large pot of Cymbidium ruidie, with large flowers, vivid color, strong fragrance and tall stems. He immediately fell in love with it and asked the owner whether it could be transferred to him. Although the owner did not understand orchids, the bursts of delicate fragrance each year when the flowers bloomed also benefited body and mind, so he did not want to transfer it. In the end, moved by Hongwang's sincerity, the flower owner had no choice but to transfer it. After obtaining this flower, Hongwang observed its color and examined its form, naming it Hongxing Ruidie, and took photographs, leaving precious original material - truly commendable. That year it was published in Orchid magazine, causing a sensation.

Afterward, that same year, Hongwang divided about 30 seedlings and 7 seedlings respectively to two local orchid enthusiasts. After that, most of the Hongxing plants in the hands of local orchid enthusiasts were divided from these two enthusiasts, and these two enthusiasts made great contributions to the development of Hongxing. The following year, Hongwang transferred more than ten seedlings to an orchid enthusiast from Guizhou. This is the reason why a very few inland orchid enthusiasts also have Hongxing in their hands. After that, Hongxing Ruidie circulated among individual orchid enthusiasts in Wenzhou, Taizhou and Ningbo, making this famous orchid from below Xiangu Cave spread its fragrance in all directions.