No matter what corner of the world you might be in, this series of articles about flowers will accompany you in appreciating the changing seasons, and will soothe the longing for home to allow the enjoyment of the coming blossoms and butterflies.
Pale, delicate yellow,
Fleeting, distant visitor, announced by your fragrance alone.
What need have you of bright blues and deep reds?
By your very nature you are the finest of flowers.
Osmanthus flowers are small and pale, and bloom in clusters nestling down among the leaf stalks. From blooming to withering the blossoms only last three days or so, and the evergreen osmanthus trees' native habitat is deep among rugged mountains.
Far away in the lonely mountains, this bashful visitor is quick to wither and fall. The osmanthus' flowers are not like the camellias or dahlias of spring which attract by their color; nor are her leaves like the banana or lotus in summer, which offer drums to the rain. When the weather has turned cool but not yet cold, and other flowers' dazzling colors have faded at last, let us close our eyes and enjoy the osmanthus!
No need of bright colors
The osmanthus (also known as the sweet olive or fragrant tea olive) has been artificially cultivated in China for over 2000 years. It has had many friends throughout history, but surely the most sensitive and tasteful eulogy is the one quoted above, by the Northern Song poetess Li Qingzhao.
How does the osmanthus repay such appreciation?
In the Palace Museum in Beijing, there is a painting entitled Listening to the Qin, by Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty. In it, a brown-robed Daoist sits playing a qin under a pine tree. To left and right are "Two quietly musing guests, one with head raised, one with head bowed/ To hear that stringless playing." In the center of the picture, on a strangely shaped stone which serves as a pedestal, stands an elegant potted plant. Its sparse leaves and branches are clearly defined, but its tiny, pale flowers are barely discernable.
"This potted 'mountain osmanthus' [as Huizong called the osmanthus] is the real main character of the painting, for whom the qin is being played," says Huang Yung-chuan, vice-director of Taipei's National Museum of History, who is an expert on floral art and a great lover of flowers. In his view, the host in the painting, quite in keeping with the fashion among the literati of his time, is playing devotedly to the flowers. The two friends seated on either side are there merely to lend the honored guest their company.
Playing a stringless qin, admiring unostentatious flowers, meditating with eyes closed, achieving enlightenment by smelling the flowers' fragrance-in 12th-century China, it really was the mature autumn of an exquisitely refined culture.
The mountain osmanthus listening to the qin in the company of great scholars is no ordinary flower. In the floral art of the Chinese literati, flowers considered worthy of having a great scholar play the qin to them with undivided attention are not more than four or five in number, and the osmanthus holds pride of place among them. It is known to flower lovers as the "fairy visitor," of which it was written: "Your delicate fragrance cannot be compared with that of other flowers/ Your fairy seed came from the moon."
The color of the moon
In its native mainland China, the osmanthus-gui in Chinese-usually flowers in the eighth lunar month as the nights grow cooler, releasing its fragrance in the balmy autumn sunshine around Mid-Autumn Festival.
Although its flowers are small, pale and shielded from view, they have the color of the moon, and what with the well-known legend of Wu Gang, there is an inseparable link between the moon and the osmanthus. Old names such as "osmanthus soul," "osmanthus wheel," "osmanthus cave" and "osmanthus toad" are all names for the moon. For people in the mortal world, the gui in the moon gradually came to symbolize their hopes of gaining immortality.
If we compare biographies of immortals in ancient yishu (books about the extraordinary), "eating gui" seems to be the most important requirement for joining their ranks. In Shenxian Zhuan (Biographies of Divine Immortals), sharp-eyed Li Lou gains immortality by drinking bamboo juice and eating gui; in Lie Xian Zhuan (Biographies of Immortals), Fan Li eats gui and drinks water, and is seen by people in generation after generation; in Bao Pu Zi (The Master Who Embraces Simplicity), Zhao Tuozi eats gui for 20 years, grows feathers on the soles of his feet, and is able to walk 500 li a day and lift weights of 1000 pounds. And in Guangzhou Ji, Father Cassia, who habitually eats gui leaves, floats up into the clouds.
Examples in ancient books of folk becoming immortal by eating gui are too many to mention, and on a rubbing of an Eastern Han dynasty carved tile from Sichuan, we actually see the moon depicted as a disc on the belly of a celestial immortal; within the disc are a toad and a gui tree.
Did the people of the Han dynasty believe that whoever ate osmanthus would become immortal? And what about that toad?
Chang E must regret stealing the elixir
Legend has it that in the time of the emperor Yao, the 10 suns which until then had taken turns to cross the sky suddenly began doing their work together, causing a heat and drought which the common people could barely endure. So the valiant Hou Yi, an expert bowman, came down to Earth to set things to rights, and he shot down nine of the suns. But these nine suns were all the beloved sons of deities in heaven. Hou Yi had only been meant to teach them a lesson, but had killed them all instead, so he could never return to heaven.
Hou Yi, acclaimed as a great hero by humanity, didn't too much mind not being able to return to heaven. But human life is short and filled with suffering, and it ends in death. After death one descends into the underworld, and this prospect daunted Hou Yi. So he travelled west to the Kunlun Mountains, where he asked the Queen Mother of the West for some elixir of immortality. But Hou Yi's wife Chang E was dismayed by the situation her husband had got them into. She was not content merely to live forever, but wanted to go back up to heaven. So she furtively swallowed both their portions of elixir, and floated up to the pure and cold palace of the moon.
After losing his wife in this way, Hou Yi became moody and irascible. Not only did he not live forever, in the end he was beaten to death by his own favorite apprentice. But hard-hearted Chang E gets her come-uppance in popular legend: she is turned into a lonely toad at the foot of the osmanthus tree in the palace of the moon.
Of course, when people's hearts softened for the beautiful Chang E, she again changed into that white hare which night and day mixes elixirs for the immortals. But some say that when Chang E arrived in the vast and cold palace of the moon, a white hare, a toad and an osmanthus tree were already there. It was not until many years later that there also came along a certain Wu Gang, who had "transgressed while studying to achieve immortality."
Pity the lonely tree in heaven
The legend of a tree in the moon has existed since ancient times, but it is not until the literary stories of the Tang dynasty that it is fleshed out with detail. According to Youyang Za Zu (Assorted Notes from Youyang) by Duan Chengshi (d. 863), the osmanthus tree in the moon is 5000 feet tall, and Wu Gang, the latecomer on the moon palace team, is a native of Xihe. He dreams of becoming an immortal, but while brewing up elixir he lazily falls asleep. This is discovered by the deity supervising his endeavors, who orders him to go to the palace of the moon and chop down the osmanthus tree there. But the tree has a strange quality: its wounds close immediately, so from then on Wu Gang has to stay in the moon to continue this futile labor forever.
Through his ceaseless efforts, for good or ill Wu Gang did become an immortal whose name has lived through the ages. But we can only wonder what law of heaven the poor osmanthus tree had violated, to deserve to be hacked at every day for the rest of eternity. Over the years, many have pitied the tree's fate, and poets from Bai Juyi of the high Tang to Yang Wanli of the Southern Song have expressed sentiments like: "Pity the lonely osmanthus in the far heavens/ Why were not two trees planted in the moon?"
The immortal Tang poet Li Bai wrote: "I would like to hew the tree in the moon/ To use for winter firewood." Since he was always dreaming of flying up into the night sky to "embrace the bright moon," he thought he might as well have some employment while he was up there, and perhaps he could do a better job than Wu Gang. If the tree's wounds really did magically close, his hacking would still yield enough firewood to "bring joy to the faces of all penniless scholars," as the other great Tang poet Du Fu had wanted to do by acquiring mansions for them all. But Du Fu was more hard-hearted, for out of infatuation with the moonlight, he wanted to "cut down the osmanthus in the moon," for then "there would surely be more of that pure light."
Reflections of humanity?
From the addition of the toad in the Han dynasty to the final arrival of Wu Gang in the Tang, the legend of the osmanthus in the palace of the moon grew richer and richer in content. But throughout history there were also many Chinese of a more scientific bent who questioned whether the osmanthus tree in the moon was real.
People with a basic knowledge of world geography believed that to the south of Mount Sumeru in India there grew a jambu tree. The tree was 2000 li high (a modern li is about one third of a mile), and the span of its branches was also 2000 li. The tree stretched right up into the sky and its shadow fell on the moon. This was the moon tree of Indian legend.
Others said with complete confidence that in the lands south of the lower Yangtze, every year on nights in the fourth or fifth lunar month, on large roads one could often pick up moon osmanthus seeds "as big as plums, and pungently fragrant when cut open." According to ancient legend, these had fallen from the moon.
Ming-dynasty botanist Li Shizhen (1518-1593), author of the comprehensive herbal pharmacopoeia Ben Cao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), once made a critical investigation of these claims. He said that the story of Wu Gang hewing the osmanthus tree actually originated in Sui and Tang dynasty stories; the idea of osmanthus seeds falling from the moon started after the reign of the Tang empress Wu Hou (ruled 684-704). By the time of the Song emperor Renzong (ruled 1023-1063), the osmanthus seeds seemed to have changed to falling at Mid-Autumn Festival, the 15th night of the eighth lunar month.
According to records, one Mid-Autumn Festival there had been a great fall of moon osmanthus seeds at Hangzhou's Lingyin Temple. They fell as thickly as rain, were as large as beans, as round as pearls, colored yellow, black or white, and had a spicy taste. The temple monks planted some of the seeds, and from them 25 trees grew.
Local annals contained many vivid descriptions of falls of osmanthus seeds from the moon, so was there really an osmanthus tree up there? But here Li Shizhen comments that "the moon shines in the night; what moves in it is the shadows of mountains and rivers." As for seeds falling from the moon, he surmised that it was just like the records in history books down the ages of deluges of dust, sand, earth and stones, or feathers, blood, fish and flesh-they were "the work of demons, not proof of an osmanthus in the moon."
All gui are not created equal
Leaving aside whether showers of seeds were the work of demons, Li's view that what can be seen on the moon is "shadows of mountains and rivers" is one which modern scientists can take on board. Associate Professor Fu Hsueh-hai of the Department of Earth Sciences at National Taiwan Normal University believes that the stories of Wu Gang hacking at the osmanthus tree and the white hare mixing elixir are not pure invention, but were based on the shape of the dark patches visible on the moon. When the full moon is high in the sky, if one joins together the dark areas they look like a hare mixing medicine, but as the moon rises in the east or sets in the west, its face is turned and we see Wu Gang hacking at the osmanthus; what were the hare's ears are now Wu Gang's two feet. As for the toad, it is the outline of the bright areas.
Thus scholars both ancient and modern agree that the "tree" in the moon is an image formed of shadows. But if there really were a tree in the moon, would it be, as most people imagine, the "fairy visitor" of the literati, which releases its scent in the eighth lunar month? Actually, this is very doubtful.
When we look up the entries on the osmanthus in the botanical section of the encyclopedic 18th-century compilation Completed Collection of Graphs and Writings of Ancient and Modern Times, what the romantically-minded literati, particularly since the Tang and Song, mostly write about is Chang E and Wu Gang, yellow petals falling like snow, and evening fragrance-a mish-mash broad enough to put together an autumn sonata. But when we read what botanists through history have to say about the same osmanthus tree, a very different picture emerges.
From Qun Fang Pu (Catalogue of Flowers) by Wang Xiangjin of the Ming dynasty, there is the following entry on the "mountain osmanthus": "So named because it grows in thickets on mountain crags. . . . Those with white flowers are called 'silver osmanthus,' [Osmanthus fragrans var. latifolius] those with yellow flowers 'gold osmanthus,' [var. thunbergii] and those with red flowers 'cinnabar osmanthus' [var. aurantiacus, the orange osmanthus]. Some flower in autumn, some in spring, some in all seasons [var. semperflorens], and some every month. The bark is thin and not pungent, and is of no medicinal value."
As for the "remarkable southern tree" which in Chinese shares the name gui with the osmanthus and is mentioned in such phrases as "gui, swallows' nest, ginseng and antler, the best of all medicines"-which when taken for long periods would allow one to commune with the spirits and "live longer than the heavens"-by all informed accounts this seems to be the thick-barked, pungent, aromatic and tonic Chinese cassia (Cinnamomum cassia), a member of the laurel family (Lauraceae), which is quite unrelated to the osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans) of the olive family (Oleaceae).
In other words, if gui seeds fell from the moon and were pungent and spicy to eat, then it would seem that the tree in the moon must be the Chinese cassia, which flowers in the fourth lunar month and fruits in the fifth.
What is Wu Gang really up to
Is it conceivable that the heavenly fragrance of the osmanthus was once in fact the pungent scent of the cassia? Smelling the divinely pure fragrance of the osmanthus, wafted far and wide by the autumn wind, people preferred to believe: "This is the tree of heaven/ This is the perfume of heaven." And just as the white hare, Chang E and Wu Gang are only shadows, is human life not also fleeting?
Humans live less than a hundred years, yet often fret about events thousands of years ago, or spend nights looking at the moon and thinking of people far away, fearing that this one is lonely or that one is forlorn and cold. One such muser is in a hurry to make a couple of the methuselan bachelor and spinster in the palace of the moon; another dubs Wu Gang an "oriental Sisyphus," likening him to Aeolus' son, condemned in Greek legend to eternally roll a huge stone up a hill, "enduring an utterly hopeless servitude"; yet he also asserts that-to use the words of the French philosopher Camus-Wu is nonetheless "happy and fulfilled." A third affirms that Wu Gang is clearly aware that the long night has no end, but "continues his work despite knowing the impossibility of his task"-a paragon of Confucianist virtue.
Believe it or not, it is not until Mao Zedong makes his appearance in the ruddy east that the real reason for Wu Gang's bludgeoning at the osmanthus tree is revealed. "Ask old Wu Gang what he has/ He'll offer you osmanthus wine!" With Inspector Mao in person on the case, the villain is finally caught red-handed. No wonder that tree was never brought down, for Wu Gang was never really chopping in earnest, but was using it as a cover to make vast quantities of the original moonshine. Thinking about it, this must have been what was behind Chang E's tipsily scattering osmanthus seeds or spilling out the osmanthus' heavenly scent. Thus several age-old mysteries left over from the era of feudal society in China were cleared up once and for all. Praise be!
Gold and jade
But in fact, this ci poem by Chairman Mao, full of the vitality of the common worker, peasant and soldier, reflects another aspect of the osmanthus' place in Chinese culture.
Although under the pens of literati since the Tang and Song, this fairy visitor among flowers had been washed clean of all connection with the vulgar mortal world, for the common people the osmanthus symbolized gold and jade, fame and fortune, and success at every level in the imperial examinations. So in the end even the literati could not escape the mundane.
In this year's Exhibition of Painting and Calligraphy on the Theme of Autumn at Taipei's National Palace Museum, there is a painting of a sprig of osmanthus in bloom by Shen Zhou, one of the four great masters of the Ming dynasty. It is inscribed: "A tree covered in golden millet/ The autumn wind blows the evening fragrance/ Chang E herself breaks off a sprig/ As a gift for a young man."
Why would Chang E in the palace of the moon go breaking off sprigs of osmanthus to give to young men in the mortal world? The popular allusion to plucking a sprig of osmanthus goes back to Xi Shen of the Jin dynasty (265-420), who self-deprecatingly referred to himself before the emperor as "a sprig from an osmanthus grove, a chip of jade from Kunshan." From the Tang dynasty onwards, success in the imperial examinations was referred to as "plucking a sprig of osmanthus," and the highest-scoring examinee was known as an "osmanthus guest" or "osmanthus-sprig youth."
Such success would bring immediate fame, and by extension the word gui came to refer to any enhancement of social status. "The place of osmanthus and jade" meant the capital; "osmanthus halls" meant high-ranking official circles; "osmanthus food" meant a substantial salary; "osmanthus kindling and jade rice" meant outrageously expensive household necessities; an "osmanthus match" signified a happy marriage; "osmanthus sons and orchid grandsons" was a phrase used to wish someone many offspring and descendants who would be successful in the imperial examinations; "osmanthus hall and cypress bed" meant the most luxurious of interiors; "osmanthus boat," "osmanthus oars," "osmanthus doors" and "osmanthus beams" all referred to top-quality, close-grained, fragrant timber; and "essence of osmanthus and pepper" meant a fine, sweet-smelling, mellow wine.
Red flowers augur exam success
As for whether all these gui referred to the Chinese cassia tree from the laurel family, or to the osmanthus, no-one was particularly concerned. After all, humans prefer their own interpretations to those of nature, and the Chinese have always liked to put the best face on things. In local annals from all over China, whenever an osmanthus tree suddenly grows a new branch or produces red blossoms, it is a sure sign that the locality will produce a few exam winners. And with the modern penchant for trying to gain support from all over the world, some have seen the laurel crown of Greek heroes and English poets (the Chinese name for the laurel includes the same gui character) as evidence that the osmanthus' fragrance extends even into foreign lands-despite the fact that the laurel and the osmanthus are unrelated.
Looking again at Shen Zhou's masterpiece, it too seems to have climbed to the far-off palace of the moon, for with the influence of the Chang E legend and the ancient allusion to plucking a sprig of osmanthus, the flowers which the poetess saw as "pale, delicate yellow" have been upgraded to "a tree covered in golden millet."
People's words reflect their own different points of view. Although in the eyes of the poets, the gold osmanthus flower "holds ten thousand bushels of fragrance in one tiny grain," for the herbalist, writing of swallow's nests, cassia, ginseng and antler, the osmanthus has far less to offer than the Chinese cassia, which can be made into fine and costly medicine, or into food fit for an emperor. From root to tip, the only part of the osmanthus which is of any value is her blossoms, which can be "used to flavor tea or wine, or to make pickles or hair conditioner"-by implication, finding uses for something inherently useless.
But just such uses had far-reaching effects, for the vat of osmanthus flower wine so willingly brought out by Wu Gang has suffused the life of China's common people with its mellow aroma for thousands of years.
Cakes of flowers and chestnuts
Have you heard of that simple person of the ancient state of Zheng who "bought a box and returned the pearls"? When he met a man of Chu who was selling some pearls, he fell in love with the box they were in and returned the pearls to the seller, turning the commercial values of capitalist society upside down. That famous jewel box of his had been smoked with osmanthus wood.
In The Dream of the Red Chamber, when Jia Baoyu sees autumn osmanthus spreading its fragrance in the Yihong Garden, he is deeply moved and plucks two sprigs to put in a vase. But then his filial piety gets the better of him: "Though these flowers have just bloomed in my own garden, I cannot presume to enjoy them myself." He hurries to fetch two vases and fill them with water, then puts a sprig of osmanthus in each and sends one to his grandmother and one to his mother. Both are "so pleased they would have agreed to anything," and they give him a large reward. Also, while the flowers are still fresh, Baoyu's clever maid Xiren makes a "steamed cake of osmanthus flowers, sugar and new chestnuts," which she sends to Baoyu's cousin Shi Xiangyun to make a good impression on her for her master.
And in Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), doesn't Ximen Qing hide "fragrant tea and osmanthus flower cakes" in his sleeves with which to tempt the famous courtesan Zheng Yue'er? But in the guzi ci (versified story with drum accompaniment) Liang Zhu Huan Hun Tuanyuan Ji (How Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai Return to Life and Are Reunited), when Zhu Yingtai tearfully combs her hair and climbs into her wedding palanquin, she oils her hair with osmanthus flower oil. Thus smelling the delicate fragrance reminds us of her anguish.
In 1950s popular music too, when Tzu Wei sang with all her heart and soul: "Come drink a glass of osmanthus flower wine/ To make me remember days gone by," audiences were captivated.
Flower shower
In the early years after the ROC government relocated to Taiwan, there were few osmanthus trees in Taiwan. Professor Yang Shao-pu, who at that time directed the Yangmingshan Experimental Flower Center, recalls that in those austere years, when people barely had enough to eat, government research resources were all put into the then Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction's work on cash crops. "We didn't have time to worry about osmanthus scent."
But every year around Mid-Autumn Festival, "whenever someone mentions osmanthus flowers, I seem to smell that fragrance again, and it makes me homesick." In 1970, Pan Chi-chun's article "Osmanthus Flower Rain," in which she reminisces about her childhood years in her home province, took her young Taiwanese readers, who were used to seeing osmanthus as shrubs, back with her on a dream journey to her homeland south of the Yangtze, to imagine the fully mature gold osmanthus trees, and see her and her family "clasp the trees and shake them with all their might," bringing the sweetly fragrant flowers down like rain to cover the ground.
Another a native of Zhejiang, Professor Huang Yung-wu, also evokes nostalgic memories, but they are different ones: "When we gathered osmanthus flowers, we did it by 'pulling.'" He recalls how in his childhood, when the osmanthus had just come into bloom, his family would spread sheets of white cloth under the trees, then put nooses of rope around branches and pull them tight in tourniquets which would cut off the sap and cause the flowers to fall. They would then dry them in the shade and mix them with sugar, to be used to make sweet New Year cakes.
So it seems that osmanthus flowers can be "shaken" or "pulled," however the fancy takes one. They come in for even rougher treatment in a recipe for "heavenly fragrance soup" from Gao Lian of the Ming dynasty, which instructs that once the osmanthus flowers are in full bloom, one should "beat them down with a pole in the early morning when they are wet with dew," then wrap them in cloth and crush them before sealing them in pots. Down here in the mortal world, the osmanthus seems doomed to suffer the same tragic fate of being beaten year in, year out, as it does in heaven where its "wounds close immediately."
Osmanthus scent in Formosa's tea hills
"Heavenly fragrance soup" and osmanthus flower New Year cake may strike many people as being "mainlander food." One Mr. Xu, a Taipei grocer, confirms that the sugared osmanthus flowers from Hong Kong which he sells in his shop are indeed "only bought by mainlanders over 40 or 50."
The osmanthus is native to southwest China; a small number are said to have been introduced into Taiwan from southern China in the 18th century. Later, as tea production increased, some tea planters also planted osmanthus to make scented teas in autumn. Near Taipei a few trees can be seen in the Sanhsia and Nankang areas, and in central Taiwan there are some at Toufen and in the lower mountain areas of Nantou County.
The majority of osmanthus trees in Taiwan are of the winter-flowering variety semperflorens. They flower later than on the mainland, starting around ROC National Day (10 October). This is when they are at their most fragrant, and the flowers are collected when half open. At this time, in areas which produce scented teas, the flowers are harvested by day and mixed with the tea the same evening. The cool fragrance of green tea mixed with the warm scent of osmanthus flowers fills the mountain villages, making even one's dreams sweetly fragrant.
Apart from filling the mountain tea gardens with its scent, many people perhaps don't know that the osmanthus almost came to line Taipei's streets. Yang Shao-pu recalls that in about the 1970s, Bureau of Public Works director Chang Kung-jung dreamed of "creating streets filled with fragrance."
But sadly the osmanthus is not a plant made for human company, for when confronted with smoke, dust and pollution, it only produces leaves, not flowers; and if it does flower it can endure neither heat nor rain, and in Taiwan's climate the blossoms wither and fall within two or three days. Thus the 100,000 saplings which were distributed to all the municipal districts, probably all ended up being planted in the courtyards of ordinary people's homes.
Precious harvest
Today, 20 years on, the saplings of those days ought now to be filling those courtyards with their scent. But sadly, with the galloping trend towards high-rise development in recent years, they have mostly suffered the same fate as the old houses themselves, of being uprooted and buried by bulldozers. Instead, it is the rhododendron, with its extraordinary tolerance for pollution, which has become Taipei City's flower, and which every spring fills the city with a blaze of red.
If today you would like to see some mature osmanthus trees, there are a few century-old trees at Haihui Convent on top of Shitoushan (Lion's Head Mountain) in Miaoli County. Master Ju-sung, who has lived in the temple for almost 60 years, gathers the flowers herself every year and makes them into osmanthus flower preserve, which she sells to a few fortunate buyers.
Near Taipei, the former Yangming Archive, which has just been taken over by Yangmingshan National Park, is a wonderful spot to visit. Located high up in the hills of Yangmingshan, it was formerly the home of the Kuomintang's Department of Party History, and housed historical materials including Chiang Kai-shek's personal files. The Chung-hsing Guesthouse, within the archive complex, was Chiang's favorite residence in the last years of his life.
As soon we enter this building, which mixes Chinese and Western styles, we see on both sides of a decorated covered walkway several silver osmanthus trees two storeys tall. In the warmth of the autumn sun, the scent of the flowers greets the nostrils, and crossing the courtyard to the back garden one comes upon an extremely rare orange osmanthus. When the huge tree is in bloom it is covered in orange flowers which release an incomparable scent.
Were all these osmanthus trees planted here because Chiang Kai-shek loved osmanthus? The old gardener says straight out: "Osmanthus scent comes to the door!" (A pun on gui (々), "osmanthus," and gui (_Q), "noble," also interpretable as "fame and fortune seek one out," and implying that the "noble" osmanthus and Chiang's power and prestige as president naturally went together). Back in those days, we ask, did anyone pluck the flowers of this so sweetly scented and rare orange osmanthus, to make the osmanthus preserve so beloved of natives of Jiangsu and Zhejiang? (Chiang was born in Zhejiang). The old fellow points up to the top corner of the building and explains that that was the room of the much-feared "general manager" (of Taipei's Grand Hotel), Miss Kung Ling-wei. Back then there were guards everywhere, and Miss Kung could see this tree from upstairs. "Who would dare to touch her flowers?"
The osmanthus in autumn has been said to "Overcome the west wind and surpass all other fragrances." But the heroes and heroines who once overcame a country, those osmanthus sons and orchid grandsons, have disappeared with the west wind. In the warmth of the golden autumn sunshine, it is the weather-beaten old gardener who has outlasted them, and who is finishing off the last of the jobs still to be done before the handover in a few days time-watering, sweeping, pruning and clipping.
Lazy days of falling blossoms
Talking and joking about heroes of a past dynasty under a warm autumn sun seems somewhat disrespectful. "Autumn fragrance hangs from the osmanthus trees over the painted walkway/ The 36 palaces are green with moss." The scene here is strikingly reminiscent of the images of the abandoned Han palace in autumn imparted by the unconventional Tang poet Li He (790-816).
The Han emperor Wudi (reigned 140--87BC), after many years' successful and energetic rule, in his latter years built a large number of palaces and gardens at Chang'an. In Jianzhang Hall there was a bronze statue of an immortal holding a tray to catch the dew, which every morning the emperor would drink, mixed with crushed jade, in the hope of becoming an immortal himself. Three centuries later Cao Cao's grandson Cao Rui decided to have the statue moved to the Wei capital of Luoyang.
By that time, in the inner garden of the Han palace the osmanthus trees still wafted out their scent, and deep in the night, one seemed still to hear the whinnying of horses in battle. But after dawn broke one could only see the thick jade-green moss covering everything. With the harvest moon shining brightly as the stars faded from the sky, the bronze immortal bade a hurried and tearful farewell to the Han as he was loaded onto the cart, and elicited this eternal lament of the late-Tang poet: "If heaven had feelings, heaven too would grow old."
So the idea of planting osmanthus trees to bring fragrance to the garden of a ruler's holiday residence was put into practice as long as 2000 years ago in the Han palace gardens; and looking back, former heroes seem no more than fleeting visitors blown by the autumn wind, and the stories of them ancient and hackneyed.
But every year when autumn comes around, the osmanthus wafts out its scent, and although the autumn round of imperial examinations has been done away with, it has been replaced by university entrance exams and cram schools. First try for fame and fortune, then strive after eternal youth. Looking up at the moon, isn't the white hare still industriously mixing elixirs, and isn't Wu Gang, who dreamed of immortality, still hacking away at the osmanthus? In heaven as on earth, plus Ca change...
[Picture Caption]
(top, bottom) The osmanthus originated in the eastern Himalayas. It is one of Chinese people's 10 favorite flowers, and is grown in many gardens. Pictured her e is an osmanthus tree in the garden of Chiang Kai-shek's former official residence in Shilin.
An image from a Han dynasty carved tile from Sichuan. On an immortal's belly is a full moon, in which we see an osmanthus tree and a toad.
Osmanthus flowers are small, pale and short lived, but if they are mixed with sugar and sealed in jars, their fragrance can be enjoyed year round. Master Ju-sung has been making osmanthus flower preserve for many decades.
In a set of 12 Qing palace paintings, one for each month of the year, the picture for the eighth lunar month shows pavilions, terraces and halls planted full of osmanthu s, and people admiring the harvest moon while enjoying the flowers' scent. (courtesy o f the National Palace Museum)
A week after the tea leaves are dried, they are added in the ratio of four to one to the freshly-harvested osmanthus flowers. They are then left overnight (left) to absorb the flowers' fragrance. The next day they are mixed (center, right) and then dried again twice (facing page), to make osmanthus-flower Oolong tea.
Gold and silver osmanthus only flower in autumn. Most of the osmanthus grown in Taiwan are the winter-flowering semperflorens variety, which releases its scent from early October right through to April.
Most of the mature osmanthus trees in Taiwan were planted during the period of Japanese rule. In the 1970s, the Taipei City government had 100,000 saplings raised, but sadly with the high-rise development of recent years, many of them have fallen to the excavator's shovel along with the houses where they were planted.
The orange osmanthus, with its long clusters of orange flowers, is a cultivated variety. People in the Tang dynasty thought it was the result of grafting an osmanthus onto a pomegranate. The upper picture is a page from a flower album by Qian Xuan of the Ming dynasty. (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)
"You overcome the west wind and surpass all other fra grances/ Who is all your splendor for?" The old orange osmanthus in the back garden of the Chung-hsing Guesthouse releases its scent year in, year out, just as it has done for decades.
A week after the tea leaves are dried, they are added in the ratio of four to one to the freshly-harvested osmanthus flowers. They are then left overnight （left） to absorb the flowers' fragrance. The next day they are mixed （center, right） and then dried again twice （facing page）, to make osmanthus-flower Oolong tea.
Gold and silver osmanthus only flower in autumn. Most of the osmanthus grown in Taiwan are the winter-flowering semperflorens variety, which releases its scent from early October right through to April.
Most of the mature osmanthus trees in Taiwan were planted during the period of Japanese rule. In the 1970s, the Taipei City government had 100,000 saplings raised, but sadly with the high-rise development of recent years, many of them have fallen to the excavator's shovel along with the houses where they were planted.
The orange osmanthus, with its long clusters of orange flowers, is a cultivated variety. People in the Tang dynasty thought it was the result of grafting an osmanthus onto a pomegranate. The upper picture is a page from a flower album by Qian Xuan of the Ming dynasty. （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）
"You overcome the west wind and surpass all other fra grances／ Who is all your splendor for?" The old orange osmanthus in the back garden of the Chung-hsing Guesthouse releases its scent year in, year out, just as it has done for decades.
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