Appreciating orchids from the orchid bud: discovering another perspective on orchid appreciation

Viewpoints and points of appreciation are extremely broad in the world of art. Everyone has their own preferences, and everyone has their own tastes. As long as they are healthy, there is no need to elevate one and disparage another; let each person have freedom of spirit. Orchid buds break through the soil, sturdy, pure, and full of vitality, like pearls and jade, truly intoxicating. Orchid buds have their own admirable qualities.

    Some orchid buds look like ivory carvings, some like grains of pearl, some like agate tips, some like emerald jade. Most give people a feeling of purity, jade-like smoothness, sturdiness, and understated elegance. Pure and elegant like these "pearls and jades," thriving in their vitality - beautiful indeed, orchid buds.

    The purest orchid buds, those that contain no other color at all, not even the slightest trace of mixed color, can often produce plain-colored flowers, that is, flowers of a single pure color, with no speckles, patches, or lines of mixed color on the lip, whether white plain flowers, or red plain, yellow plain, light green plain flowers, and so on - in short, flowers of pure color. The bud color often resembles the flower color: red buds produce red flowers, white buds produce white flowers. But there are also red buds that produce plain white flowers; for example, in Zhongshan City, Guangdong, there is the red-bud plain orchid. Things always have exceptions, and orchids are no different.

    Orchid buds may be blunt or pointed; some look like knife tips, some like peanut kernels. Orchid growers often prefer to select and plant those whose buds look like peanut kernels, believing they may later produce large flowers, either lotus-type or plum-type, more beautiful than ordinary orchids. Therefore, examining the color and shape of orchid buds is also one of the secrets of orchid selection and breeding. Orchid growers have done much research on this. Every spring, when mountain orchids come to market, the stalls are filled with all kinds of newly collected mountain orchids, and buyers often turn their eyes to the orchid buds of these mountain orchids. Some even carefully examine the buds with a magnifying glass, hoping to make discoveries and predictions. There is no greater attention paid to orchid buds than this. But aside from the very few orchid growers who can judge accurately and predict very well, buying at a cheap price orchid seedlings that will later produce absolutely superb flowers, most people still cannot judge accurately: they think the buds are very good, but the flowers that later bloom are merely ordinary. In this examining, hoping, and anticipating, in the shrewd foresight and the careless misjudgment, there is also a wealth of life philosophy - it is even more painstaking than choosing a "successor" or choosing a romantic partner. The way orchid buds mislead people is sometimes more dramatic than the way people mislead others in interpersonal relationships.

    The ancients said: "Newborn things are ugly." I think this is only an observation of animals. Look at those kittens and puppies - some have not yet opened their eyes, some are covered in wrinkles, squeaking and crying, so unattractive. Wait until they grow to maturity - young men and women, handsome boys and pretty girls - then they are beautiful. But with plants it is different. New buds and tender seedlings, when they break through the shell or stem, are often pearl-like and jade-smooth, so beautiful. For plants, one could also say, "Newborn things are beautiful."

    Although plants and animals both belong to living things, their expressions are often completely different. Newborn animals are often ugly; newborn plants are often beautiful - that is one point. Furthermore, animals often keep their reproductive organs (whether female or male) hidden, such as growing them in more concealed places. Plants are different: plants often display their reproductive organs (flowers, ovaries, pistils, stamens, fruits, etc.) openly, such as growing them in the most conspicuous places or appearing in the most conspicuous forms. Plants are far more sexual in their ecology than animals. We do not go to look at the reproductive organs of animals, yet we all go to look at the reproductive organs of plants - admiring their flowers, their pistils, their stamens, and so on. Is that not strange?

    One of the viewpoints of orchid appreciation can also be appreciating orchid buds. From the ecological characteristics of plants, this makes perfect sense and can also become a common understanding among orchid enthusiasts.