The Latest Detailed Guide to the Flower Language and Legends of the Dandelion
Dandelions grow by the roadside and beside ponds, and are flowers we see all the time. When autumn comes, dandelions drift away with the wind, looking especially beautiful. But do you know what the flower language of the dandelion is? What stories and legends surround the dandelion? Let us take a look together below at the flower language and legends of the dandelion!
The Flower Language of the Dandelion
The flower language of the dandelion: love that cannot stay.
1. Purple dandelion: A dandelion with a pale purple color, its flower language is “the legendary purple”, with the attribute of darkness. Legend has it that whoever finds a purple dandelion will obtain perfect love.
2. Flying Arrow dandelion: A dandelion given the name Flying Arrow, its flower language is “aiming at the marble”, with the attribute of wind.
3. Autumn dandelion: The flowers of the autumn dandelion contain abundant nectar, so whenever the flowering season arrives, bees come swarming in, and therefore its flower language is temptation.
Legend of the Dandelion, Part One
It is said that long ago, a sixteen-year-old grown girl suffered from breast abscess, her breast red and swollen and unbearably painful, but she was too ashamed to speak of it and could only endure it. When her mother learned of this, in feudal society no one had ever heard of a grown girl suffering from breast abscess, so she thought her daughter had done something shameful.
Seeing that her mother doubted her chastity, the girl was both ashamed and angry, and even more ashamed to face people, so she made up her mind and secretly fled from home at night to throw herself into the river.
As it happened, there was a fishing boat by the river at the time, and on it an old man surnamed Pu and his daughter Xiaoying were casting nets to fish in the moonlight. They rescued the girl and asked her the reason for throwing herself into the river.
The next day, following her father's instructions, Xiaoying dug up a kind of small grass from the mountain, washed it clean and pounded it into a paste, and applied it to the girl's breast abscess, and within a few days she was completely cured.
Afterwards, the girl took this grass home to plant, and to commemorate the fisherman and his daughter, she called this wild grass dandelion (pugongying).
Legend of the Dandelion, Part Two
There was a young daughter of a wealthy family named Zhaoyang, deeply cherished by her parents. But by the time Zhaoyang reached seventeen or eighteen, she still had not found a husband she liked, and her parents were reluctant to let their beloved daughter leave them, so they did not take the matter much to heart either.
One day Zhaoyang was out enjoying herself on the street with her personal maid, when she saw a handsome young man carrying herbs on a pole. The handsome herb-gathering young man also noticed the beautiful Zhaoyang, but they could only smile at each other, because the traditional ideas of that time held that men and women should not touch each other. After the young man's figure disappeared into the crowd, her heart had already been carried away with him.
After that, Zhaoyang often asked the servants about that herb-gathering young man. She learned that the man she liked was named Pu Gong. He had once read many books and was deeply learned, but later, because his parents died early, his family fell into poverty, so he made his living by gathering herbs. And Pu Gong also often thought of Zhaoyang, but he felt inferior because of his poor family.
Finally, one day Zhaoyang told her parents about the matter, but met with strong opposition from them.
Her parents could not out-stubborn their daughter, so they reluctantly agreed. After they married, because her parents and relatives still had much dissatisfaction with and discrimination against Pu Gong, Zhaoyang and Pu Gong discussed it and made a willing decision——to wander to the ends of the earth.
Zhaoyang and Pu Gong later wandered to a small mountain village with beautiful scenery. By the small stream in front of the tile kiln grew many blue wildflowers. They decided to settle there. Although life at the tile kiln was hard, they lived very happily, and Zhaoyang also gave birth to a daughter. On the day Zhaoyang gave birth to her daughter, the blue wildflowers by the stream bloomed with unusual brilliance, so Zhaoyang gave her daughter the childhood name——Lanruo.
However, because the situation was chaotic, before long Pu Gong was forced to join the army and go to war, and this departure lasted eighteen years!
One day eighteen years later, a tremendous piece of good news spread into Zhaoyang's ears like a spring breeze: Pu Gong had returned! And because of his outstanding battle merits, he had become a great general. After hearing this, Zhaoyang was incomparably excited and joyful. This news she had waited eighteen years for made her far too excited, and together with Zhaoyang's lovesickness having become an illness, she fainted.
As Zhaoyang lay dying, with a look of infinite attachment she said to Pu Gong: “Take good care of Lanruo. Do you still remember the wildflowers all over the mountain? Take them to the front lines. They can not only be eaten, but can also heal wounds. When you miss me, they will flutter in the wind by your side!” After saying this, Zhaoyang turned into countless white flowers fluttering in the sky.
Later Pu Gong left the tile kiln with Lanruo and many wildflowers, marching and fighting for tens of thousands of li. Along the way he would take those wildflowers out and let them drift down to the earth with the wind, and from then on the beautiful and self-reliant wildflowers could be seen everywhere across the mountains and plains.