Have you ever fallen for fake flowers bought on the street?

Does this scene look familiar to you? I remember 10 years ago, when I was dating my husband, as soon as we walked down the street and saw this kind of small stall, I immediately couldn't move my feet. The flowers in the pictures were so beautiful that I wished I could take them all home. The vendor's sales pitch was fantastical, and in a daze, my husband and I carried home a bunch of flowers that looked like rotten tree roots and excitedly planted them in flower pots. After they grew leaves, I felt something was a bit off. Why did they look so much like weeds? I comforted myself and waited a bit longer. Maybe once they bloomed, they would be different. In the end, what came up was this.

This plant, whose scientific name is "Shanglu" (Phytolacca acinosa, pokeweed), I still remember that when I bought it, the vendor called it "Blooming Wealth and Honor," and there was also this thing called five-colored peony, but what grew out turned out to be water celery, which can be seen everywhere in the countryside.

There is also a kind called seven-colored plum blossom. Just looking at the name made you want to buy a pot. But what happened? It was actually just a rooted plant dug up from the wild, with poplar buds dyed with pigment and then stuck onto the roots by cuttings or glued on. And so on and so forth, it was simply impossible to guard against. There was no way around it. Who could resist when the photos were made so beautiful and the price was still affordable? It was hard not to buy. Anyway, Bai Xiao Mei'er has been tricked several times.

Besides these, the roots of various types of peonies are also the easiest to buy counterfeit versions of. Often the pictures look beautiful, and the roots are peony roots, but what blooms in the end is just very ordinary medicinal peony. Fellow flower lovers, have you ever had this kind of flower-buying experience? Here, Bai Xiao Mei'er must remind everyone that when buying flowers, try not to buy bare-root flowers, especially flowers with very beautiful pictures. It is very likely that the flower you bring home and carefully care for is nothing but a weed.