What variety exactly is Jinao Su cymbidium?
The story of Jinao Su
The towering and continuous Siming Mountains of eastern Zhejiang, with jagged peaks rising one after another and ancient trees reaching the sky, gaze down upon the East China Sea day and night, displaying a majestic and vast spirit. In the mountains, sunlight filters through layer upon layer of foliage, sifting down countless golden specks. Between the cliffs, a silvery waterfall flies out, smashing against the rocks and splashing into thousands of pearls, which, as the mountain terrain gradually descends, turn into murmuring streams, leisurely converging into the Hui River (the ancient name of the Yao River, named because the mountains along its banks abound in orchids and cymbidiums) and the Yong River, flowing respectively through Yuyao and Ningbo, then turning northeast to empty into the East China Sea.
In the embrace of this beautiful and mild nature, rich plant resources such as orchids and cymbidiums are nurtured. Since ancient times, many famous orchids of Jiangsu and Zhejiang have successively emerged from the deep mountain valleys around the Siming Mountains, especially in the Qing Dynasty, when Yuyao was one of the bustling distribution centers for orchids and cymbidiums in Jiangnan.
According to legend, during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty (1767-1850), to the north of Yuyao county town, there was a very famous hotel - Taihao. Here, customers could not only drink and eat, but also lodge.
Every year during the second and third lunar months, the hotel's bustle was unprecedented, with people coming from various places to Yuyao to visit orchid exhibitions, attend elegant gatherings, and also many orchid farmers and orchid dealers carrying orchids to Yuyao to sell "wild-collected orchids". By night, they would all come to this hotel to eat and stay. Especially these orchid sellers, after several years of dealings, had become quite familiar with the hotel staff, and they practically treated Taihao as their home, truly feeling as if they had returned home.
Now, this Taihao Hotel owner Xu Xisan ordinarily loved growing orchids, especially as the orchid-growing fashion of the time rose and developed, he also expanded the space, increased the varieties and number of pots, with great momentum that seemed unstoppable. So whenever those carrying orchids came to the hotel to drink and stay, Xu Xisan would treat them as confidants and always entertain them with extra warmth. He would also habitually select a few plants from the orchid grasses they brought, paying double. Sometimes, those orchid farmers clearly told him there were no fine flowers among them, but he still bought some, intentionally letting them earn a little more income to solve their living difficulties.
Among the many flower farmers who came one after another to lodge at the hotel, if one asked who was the owner's confidant, it would certainly be old man Chu Kunxian of Jinao Mountain. He was over fifty, sturdy in build, with slightly white temples, a pair of bright piercing eyes under thick eyebrows, a gray belt around his waist, and bamboo-leaf sandals on his feet. For many years, he had been a regular guest of this Taihao Hotel.
Every spring during Yuyao's orchid grand gathering season, old man Chu would surely carry his orchid load to the hotel to lodge. After more than ten years of such coming and going, the hotel owner Mr. Xu and this mountain farmer gradually came to understand each other more deeply. He knew that the old man, due to family poverty, had never married and always lived alone, with no other relatives. Over these ten-plus years, the old man had come to the hotel many times, and occasionally he would inevitably have headaches and fevers; whenever the owner learned of it, he would always pay out of his own pocket to hire a doctor for the old man, sometimes even personally brewing medicine and delivering it, and instructing the hotel staff to bring water and food, carefully and thoughtfully tending to him. All of this often moved old man Chu to tears, and he kept thinking about how he might repay it.
As the saying goes: "Human life ages easily, but heaven does not age." After Qingming came Chongyang again, and old man Chu year after year came and went at the Taihao Hotel, everything appearing so ordinary. But ruthless time slowly shaped this orchid farmer into a white-haired old man with crisscrossing wrinkles on his face, a slightly hunched spine, and an age past seventy.
Another new year came, and spring returned to the earth. The turtledoves on the branches urgently called to their companions: "Come quickly, come quickly..." In the mountain village, rapeseed flowers were golden, frog calls resounded for ten li, and spring was brimming everywhere. At this time in previous years, old man Chu of Jinao Mountain would as usual carry a full load of orchids to stay at the Taihao Hotel. Why had he not come this year? The owner missed him day and night.
Just two days before the spring equinox, old man Chu finally came. But this year was different from previous years; he had no orchid load, only a small bamboo basket slung over his shoulder. He cupped his hands in salute. Owner Xu also warmly stretched out both hands to help the old man into the shop, invited him to sit and drink tea, while he himself sat on a chair on the other side asking about this and that. They had been apart for a full half year, yet the days seemed as if they had been separated for a very long time. The hotel staff also treated old man Chu like a relative reunited after a long separation and immediately gathered around.
Old man Chu took a sip of tea, stroked his silver beard, and said with deep feeling: "For more than twenty years, I have entered and left Taihao many times, and thanks to your care and attention in many ways, besides gratitude in my heart, I also feel deeply embarrassed. Now, I am advanced in years; after spring begins I will be seventy-five, and my energy is not what it was year by year. Whether I can come to the city to meet again in the future is truly hard to predict." After speaking, he bowed and reached both hands into the bamboo basket beside him, and tremblingly took out a handful of cymbidium grass, dark green and glossy, with relatively slender leaves, sharp leaf tips, and leaves one and a half chi long, placed it on the table, and continued: "This is a nine-segment plain-heart orchid I collected five years ago from the deep high mountains of my hometown. Its entire flower is emerald green, and its petals are crystal clear like jade. I can say this: in my whole life I have never collected a better variety than her. I have always cherished her deeply. I carefully tended her. I treated her almost like my own wife and daughter, and never let anyone else know." The old man's eyes grew moist; the more he spoke, the more excited he became, his words filled with deep attachment to this cymbidium.
Old man Chu paused for a moment, drank two large gulps of tea, and then continued: "Today I resolutely decided to take her out of the pot and bring her here to give to you to cultivate. First, to express my sincere gratitude to you and fulfill a long-held wish. Second, to entrust you to wholeheartedly care for her well, so that this famous nine-segment plain-heart orchid can continue to multiply and be passed on." After speaking, he drew a long breath, then suddenly stood up, once again cupped his hands in farewell to Xu Xisan and the staff, and reluctantly left the Taihao Hotel.
Now, the owner of the Taihao Hotel stood respectfully at the door, silently watching old man Chu's figure gradually recede into the distance. He entered the shop with a feeling of having lost something, not quite able to say whether it was melancholy or worry. Then he picked up the cymbidium grass on the table, opened his eyes moistened by tears and looked carefully: it was cymbidium grass with five growths and one bud. In his heart he realized that what he held in his hands was not ordinary cymbidium grass, but the old man's sincere and loyal heart.
From lining the bottom with mussel shells and adding snail shells to planting the grass and watering with "pressed mouth water", he personally and carefully completed it all. Then he stood up and stepped back a few paces. Silently gazing at the newly planted plain cymbidium, in his heart he prayed that she would grow stronger and more flourishing year after year.
The pattering spring rain moistened the earth, and the gentle spring breeze awakened wildflowers all over the mountains. About ten days after old man Chu left the shop, this pot of cymbidium also bloomed: slender flowers, green shell and green stalk. The emerald green petal shape and color resembling both "lotus" and "immortal", thick in texture with flat shoulders. Between the two mussel-shell holding petals that did not open a "skylight", a light green velvety tongue was half hidden and half exposed. That such a fine flower should actually be owned by himself truly delighted this Taihao Hotel owner Xu Xisan, and he felt infinite satisfaction and joy. In less than two shichen, those orchid friends of Yuyao learned the news that the Taihao Hotel had a plain-heart cymbidium never seen before, and immediately people kept coming to the hotel to view the flower. When people saw this flower, some admired it, some praised it... Many stood by the flowerpot for a long time and still could not bear to leave. Because it was a new flower and had no name yet, after some discussion, everyone thought that since this flower was cultivated in the Taihao Hotel, they might as well simply call it "Tai Su". From then on, Yuyao's orchid friends always called this cymbidium variety Tai Su.
Turning back to speak again of this cymbidium Tai Su: under Xu Xisan's careful cultivation, it bloomed year after year. Each time it was allowed to bloom for as long as half a month, and her outer three petals remained as spread upright and not leaning backward as when first blooming. Moreover, because this grass had strong resistance, vigorous growth, and was easy to cultivate, in just a few years it was almost a full pot. Looking at this green treasure with a slanting yet leisurely leaf posture, the Taihao Hotel owner liked it even more, but amid this joy, he was always unable to forget that old friend living in Jinao Mountain. Especially each year when he saw this cymbidium first reveal her beauty, his heart would again and again surge with deep remembrance of the old man, always hoping the old man would come again to the hotel to meet. But he hoped year after year, yet never again saw the old man come to lodge at the shop. Later he heard other flower farmers mention that the old man had passed away in early autumn two years earlier. For this reason, the Taihao Hotel owner often felt a sense of disappointment when he thought of it, and seeing this flower would stir in him a sorrow of "the person is gone but the flower remains, both lingering".
To express his remembrance of his old friend, the Taihao Hotel owner Xu Xisan named this lotus-form plain cymbidium "Jinao Su" after the old man Chu's hometown. For several hundred years, this Jinao Su has remained supreme among all cymbidium varieties. Today, her traces are not only all over the country but also reach as far as Korea, Japan and other countries, as well as Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, China and other regions. How beloved she is by people at home and abroad!
Transcribed from "Orchid and Cymbidium Anecdotes"