The acacia tree says nothing, yet it holds a heart full of longing

I first encountered Kerria japonica the third time I joined the Peking University Green Association's phenological observations. "So this is what Kerria japonica looks like! Is this the plant used in the Book of Songs to symbolize brothers?" Later I found my memory was wrong! What the Book of Songs refers to is "changdi," and "changdi" and "Kerria japonica" are two completely different plants. Besides these, there is also "tangdi" and "tangdi" (written with different characters), and the four sound alike and look similar, and are often confused.

A blooming Kerria japonica flower

1 Kerria japonica: Says nothing, but longs

The official Chinese name of Kerria japonica is "Kerria flower," of the rose family, genus Kerria, a deciduous shrub, and a common ornamental garden plant. Kerria flowers come in single and double forms, and bloom profusely. The Southern Song poet Fan Chengda (1126-1193) used the line "green ground, gold threads, a woven sash" ("Kerria Flowers by the Roadside at Shenjiadian") to describe Kerria, which is quite apt. And when Gao Shitan, a member of the Northern Song imperial clan, saw blooming Kerria after his country fell, he was overwhelmed with sorrow: "A stranded lone official, how can I bear to look, it is so deeply like imperial robe yellow." ("Kerria")

Kerria is also known in Japan as "yamabuki." Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), the famous Edo-period haiku poet, once wrote a poem on Kerria:

Yamabuki falls, silently without a sound, dancing, the sound of the rapids.

Note: long (lóng, rushing water)

This poem has also been translated as "The rushing rapids flow, yet Kerria petals fall rustling."

The river's water rushes swiftly, mighty and ceaseless; on the bank Kerria flowers fall, dancing in the wind, silent and soundless. Imagine this mood: two states of nature appear in the same time and space, and the "motion" of the flowing water better sets off the silent beauty of the Kerria withering, with something quite Zen about it.

Wild Kerria in the mountains

Among traditional Japanese colors there is "yamabuki-iro," which refers to the color of the Kerria flower. [1] It is said that if you mix gamboge from Chinese painting with a little vermilion, then dip in a touch of ochre, the Kerria flower will leap onto the paper.

Double Kerria flower

Single Kerria flower

Yamabuki-iro

"Yamabuki-iro" appears in The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book, and other Japanese classical literature. The Pillow Book is a collection of essays by the Heian-period female writer Sei Shonagon, completed around 1001. Sei Shonagon ("Sei" comes from the family surname "Kiyohara," while "Shonagon" was a palace office title) served as a lady-in-waiting in the court for seven years, attending Empress Teishi, consort of the 66th emperor of the Heian period. Though the two were mistress and servant, they got along harmoniously and were deeply affectionate. After the empress died, the author left the palace and served no one else. In her later years she lived alone, recalling her earlier court life, every little detail, lingering on it all, and so wrote The Pillow Book. In the book, the section "Kerria Petals" [2] tells a story of conveying feelings through a flower:

For a long time I had received no news from the Empress, and more than a month had passed, which had never happened before. Fearing that the Empress might be doubting me too, I was feeling uneasy when the senior lady-in-waiting of the palace came holding a letter.

...

When I opened it and looked, there was not a single word written on the paper, but there was a Kerria petal, just one wrapped inside. On the paper was written: "Says nothing, but longs."

"Says nothing, but longs" comes from the Kokin Rokujo [3], an ancient song, whose full lyrics read:

The heart is like water flowing underground, churning,

Says nothing, but longs,

Better than speaking.

After reading the letter, Sei Shonagon was deeply moved, tears streaming down, and she naturally answered with the first half of the line. One letter, one petal, one love poem, such tacit understanding, not lovers, yet more than lovers. So, can Kerria flowers express longing in Japanese culture? Zhou Zuoren's translation annotates this passage as follows: Kerria flowers are yellow, like gardenia; the Japanese name of gardenia means "mouthless," meaning its fruit does not split open even when ripe, and it is homophonous with the word for "mute"; here the Kerria petal serves as a pun for not speaking, corresponding to the song's words. [4]

The "gardenia" in the annotation is also a traditional Japanese color, dyed from the gardenia fruit, and its color is close to that of the Kerria flower. Linking Kerria with gardenia, and further with "says nothing," is still somewhat convoluted. Yet Sei Shonagon could immediately understand the meaning of the Kerria petal in the letter, proving herself a true confidante of the Empress. That such feeling could exist between mistress and servant is admirable.

Gardenia, and gardenia color

2 Changdi, Tangdi: Of all people today, none are like brothers

The confusion between Kerria and tangdi is not a modern matter. Li Shangyin's "Sent to Luo Shaoxing": "Tangdi yellow flowers bloom, forget-sorrow green leaves are even." The yellow flower here should be the aforementioned "Kerria," not "tangdi."

It is generally believed that "tangdi" is another way of writing "changdi." "Changdi" first appears in the Book of Songs, Minor Odes, "Changdi." This poem praises the brotherly bond between brothers; the well-known lines "The wagtail is on the plain, brothers rush to hardship" and "Brothers quarrel within the walls, but guard against outside threats" come from this poem:

The flowers of the changdi, how bright their calyx and stem.

Of all people today, none are like brothers.

In the poem, "calyx and stem" is one explanation referring to the flower's calyx and base [5]; taking the calyx and base clinging closely together as the opening image, later ages often used "di hua" and "di e" to mean brothers, as in the frontier poem by the late Tang general Gao Pian, "Sent to My Elder Brother on the Frontier": "The di calyx parted, messengers are few, how many homesick tears wet the campaign robe. Before the tartar pipe breaks off, the heart already breaks, across ten thousand li of northern sky no bird flies."

Guo Moruo wrote the play "The Flower of Tangdi," adapted from the story in the Records of the Grand Historian, Biographies of Assassins, of Nie Zheng, who at Yan Zhongzi's request assassinated the Han minister Xia Lei. In the Records of the Grand Historian, after completing the assassination, Nie Zheng "cut the skin from his face, gouged out his eyes, and disemboweled himself," so that his sister would not recognize him and be implicated. The people of Han exposed the corpse in the marketplace and offered a great reward to anyone who could identify the assassin. When Nie Zheng's sister Nie Rong learned of this, she guessed the assassin was her brother Nie Zheng, and when she went to claim the body she revealed her identity, saying something that shocked the people of Han: "How could I fear death by execution and let my worthy brother's name be extinguished forever!" She too died beside Nie Zheng. People of the time called Nie Zheng's sister a martyr. When Guo Moruo wrote this play, it was during the War of Resistance, and he elevated the assassination in the original story from "a scholar dies for one who understands him" to the height of sacrificing oneself for the country to avenge a "public grudge." The play's opening focuses on portraying the brother and sister as heroes who give their lives for their country and die in service to it [6]:

I would not live on in cowardice, but wish to die gloriously.

I wish to give my one life, to save the common people!

The common people have long been in misery, not one home in ten is whole.

...

I think at this moment all the sisters and brothers under heaven are sunk in deep water and scorching fire; if we can save them, then even sacrificing our own humble bodies is the highest happiness in life...

I hope your fresh red blood will burst forth into the flower of freedom, blooming all across China! (Act One, Scene Two)

The reason the play was titled "The Flower of Tangdi" is probably also to take the brotherly affection of the two siblings. Yu Guanying, explaining "Minor Odes, Changdi," said: "The poet compares the changdi flower to brothers, perhaps because each two or three blossoms cling to one another, hence the association."

Having said all this, what plant exactly is "changdi," that is, "tangdi"? Lu Ji, a scholar of the Wu state during the Three Kingdoms period, described it in his "Commentary on the Plants, Trees, Birds, Beasts, Insects and Fish of the Mao Edition of the Book of Songs" as follows:

Changdi, Xu Shen says: "It is the white di tree." It is like a plum but smaller, its fruit like a cherry, pure white. It is now planted in official gardens. There is also the red di tree, also like the white di, its leaves like those of the Siberian elm but slightly rounder, its fruit pure red, like the dwarf flowering cherry but smaller, ripening only in the fifth month. It is found in abundance from Guanxi, Tianshui and Longxi.

Scholars of the Western Jin believe Guo Pu's Erya says changdi's "fruit is like a cherry and edible." This is not far from Lu Ji's description.

Changdi? White di? Red di? What exactly is it? From ancient times to the present there have been many related annotations and textual researches, yet none has led us to a clear conclusion. But what can be certain is that "changdi" and "tangdi" are a kind of tree similar to the cherry.

Fruit like a cherry? Pictured: dwarf flowering cherry

3 Tangdi: How lush it is, the flower of the tangdi

In the Book of Songs, besides "changdi," there is also "tangdi." The Book of Songs, Odes of Shao and the South, "How Splendid" uses the profusion of tangdi flowers to describe the lavishness of a noble woman's carriages, horses and clothing at her marriage:

How lush (nóng) it is, the flower of the tangdi.

How could it not be solemn and harmonious (yōng)? The carriage of the king's daughter.

As for what plant "tangdi" is, the controversy is even greater.

Guo Pu's "Erya Commentary" holds that tangdi "resembles the white poplar, and in Jiangdong it is called fuyi." The Tang scholar Kong Yingda's "Correct Meaning of the Mao Edition of the Book of Songs" and Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" also follow this account, holding that tangdi belongs to the poplar category. But Lu Ji believes "tangdi" is "ao plum." Qing scholars basically agreed with Lu Ji. The Book of Songs scholar Ma Ruichen (1777-1853) and Wang Xianqian (1842-1917) both researched and explained this, and their views are basically the same. Ma Ruichen believes both tangdi and changdi are plants of the dwarf flowering cherry kind. Wang Xianqian, after a rather long textual research, concluded: "The fruit of tangdi is called dwarf flowering cherry; it is as large as a plum, while the fruit of changdi is like the dwarf flowering cherry but smaller. Both are di trees, only slightly different in variety." In addition, the botanist Wu Qijun (1789-1847) directly equated tangdi with the dwarf flowering cherry:

Dwarf flowering cherry, a lower grade in the Classic of Materia Medica. It is tangdi. Its fruit is like a cherry and red. In Wu it is called juemei, in Gushi it is called yangli. There are two kinds, single and thousand-petaled. The single kind bears much fruit and grows on field ridges; the thousand-petaled kind has dense flowers, and a thread at its center connects to the base, commonly called chuanxinmei. After the flower falls the center and base still hang from the branch, hence Master Cheng said the di calyx is very firm. The Illustrated Classic merges changdi into one, which cannot be relied upon.

Single and double dwarf flowering cherry

According to Wu Qijun, the dwarf flowering cherry flower also has two kinds, one single and one "thousand-petaled." "Thousand-petaled" may be the double-flowered variety of the dwarf flowering cherry; "after the flower falls the center and base still hang from the branch" and "the di calyx is very firm" sound more like the "flowers of the changdi" that symbolize brothers in the Book of Songs. But this also shows that in Wu Qijun's view, though tangdi and changdi are not the same plant, they are very similar.

The tangdi in today's Flora of China

In the modern Flora of China, however, the name tangdi belongs to a small tree with white flowers. Its fruit is about 1 cm in diameter, blue-black, with a fruiting period of September-October, absolutely unlike today's dwarf flowering cherry and various cherries; rather, it matches the "tangdi" drawn in the Japanese Hosoi Jun's Illustrated Flora of the Book of Songs, "the flower spikes droop, the petals are slender, white and fragrant, cultivated for ornament."

Tangdi in the Illustrated Flora of the Book of Songs

May 17, 2018, at Puhuangyu

[1] Many traditional Japanese colors are named after plants, such as "red plum," "peach," "daylily," "violet," "gardenia," and so on. See http://nipponcolors.com/.

[2] (Japan) Sei Shonagon, trans. Zhou Zuoren: The Pillow Book, China Translation & Publishing Corporation, 2001 edition, p. 231.

[3] (Japan) Sei Shonagon, trans. Zhou Zuoren: The Pillow Book, China Translation & Publishing Corporation, 2001 edition, p. 247, note 105.

[4] (Japan) Sei Shonagon, trans. Zhou Zuoren: The Pillow Book, China Translation & Publishing Corporation, 2001 edition, p. 247, note 104.

[5] In oracle bone script, "bu" resembles the shape of a flower base, and its original meaning is flower base. Hence a wooden drinking vessel shaped like a flower base is called a "cup." In Dream of the Red Chamber, the "pou" in "a handful (pou) of pure earth covers elegance" should be explained as "cupped hands," that is, the hands made into the shape of a flower base. The above see Zou Xiaoli, Explaining the Origin of the Form and Meaning of Basic Chinese Characters (Revised Edition), Zhonghua Book Company, August 2007 edition, pp. 190-191.

[6] Published October 10, 1920, in Shanghai's Shishi Xinbao, Xue Deng Supplement.

[7] (Jin) Guo Pu, annotated, (Song) Xing Bing, sub-commentary: Annotated Erya, Peking University Press, 1999 edition, p. 309.

[8] Yu Guanying: Annotated Selections of Poetry, People's Literature Publishing House, 1979 second edition, p. 172.

[9] (Jin) Guo Pu, annotated, (Song) Xing Bing, sub-commentary: Annotated Erya, Peking University Press, 1999 edition, p. 309.

[10] (Tang) Kong Yingda: Correct Meaning of the Mao Edition of the Book of Songs, Peking University Press, 1999 edition, p. 570.

[11] (Qing) Ma Ruichen: Comprehensive Explanation of the Mao Edition of the Book of Songs, Zhonghua Book Company, 1989 edition, p. 501.

[12] (Qing) Wang Xianqian: Collected Explanations of the Three Schools of the Book of Songs, Zhonghua Book Company, 1987 edition, p. 117.

[13] (Qing) Wu Qijun, ed., annotated by Zhang Xianrui et al.: Annotated Examination of Plant Names and Reality, Traditional Chinese Medicine Antiquarian Press, 2008 edition, p. 568.

[14] Chinese Academy of Sciences, Editorial Committee of the Flora of China: Flora of China, Science Press, 2004 edition, Flora of China vol. 36, p. 403.

About the author: Jianghan Tangtang, corporate employee / art museum public education volunteer / freelance writer, currently living in Beijing.

Text and image editing: Jiang Mouren

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