Lotus and religious culture
When people walked into the temple, they looked up and saw a statue of Sakyamuni, wearing a shoulder-length gown and making a statement, sitting on the lotus platform. According to Buddhist scriptures, this is a gesture that Buddha Sakyamuni preached to believers after becoming a Buddha. Amitabha, known as the head of the "Three Sages of the West", is also sitting on the lotus platform, with his hands on his feet and a lotus platform in his palm, which seems to guide all beings to the pure land of the Western Buddhist country. Guanyin, who is famous for her kindness and compassion, is dressed in white, sitting on the Bai Lianhua, holding a pure bottle in one hand and clinging to a Bai Lianhua in the other, as if to show Guanyin's pure bodhisattva heart, and fully guide the believers to leave the world and reach the pure land of Buddhism where lotus flowers are in full bloom.
When people read Buddhist scriptures, they often see that the Buddhist scriptures refer to the Buddhist country as the lotus boundary, the temple as the lotus room, the monk's cassock as the lotus dress, the monk's handprint as the lotus fight, and the "rosary" used by the monk is also made of lotus seeds. Buddhist scriptures say that it is better to use lotus seeds as rosary beads than locust beads. If you pinch it again, you will get a thousand times the blessing.
To sum up, lotus has formed an indissoluble bond with Buddhism and has become a symbol and sacred flower of Buddhism.
Lotus and Poetry Culture
In the hot summer, the lotus is open, graceful, charming, elegant and refreshing, which makes people linger. Lotus has been the favorite of literati since ancient times. As early as more than 3,000 years ago, there were poems such as "Ji has lotus flowers" and "Bize has evil flowers and prosperity" in the Book of Songs. Since then, there have been countless works of poets chanting lotus. In the Song Dynasty alone, Yang Wanli left dozens of lotus poems. There are more than 400 poems about lotus in the vegetation canon of The Integration of Ancient and Modern Books in Qing Dynasty.
Because of the poet's different moods, interests and aesthetic angles, poems about lotus have various forms and different verve. Qu Yuan once fantasized in Li Sao: "Make lotus hair as clothes and pick hibiscus as clothes." Used to show their loyalty. Li Bai expressed his love with lotus flowers in "Folding Lotus Gifts". Wang Bo, one of the "four outstanding figures in the early Tang Dynasty", once compared people with lotus flowers: "Holding flowers * * * and connecting stems, folding lotus roots and loving lotus lines." It means the lotus root is broken. In the Song Dynasty, Zhou Dunyi's "Love Lotus" is a metaphor for the lotus, praising the quality of a gentleman, which has been praised throughout the ages. In the Qing Dynasty, Wan was proud of Bai Lianhua's lay man, and even changed his birthday to the legendary lotus birthday-June 24th of the lunar calendar, and wrote a poem: "Mud never touches clear water, and I live with the lotus." The poet was moved by the beautiful lotus and fell in love with the crisp lotus leaf. Zheng's Ode to the Lotus Leaf praised: "The lotus is red on the top and white on the bottom." What a precious dedication this is. Yang Wanli's poem "Lotus Root" wrote: "It's really rough to look at the outside, and Xu Linglong is carved in the chest." Meng Jiao's poem in the Tang Dynasty said: "My heart is full of silk, although it is still broken." Later, "broken contact" became an idiom. There is a long tradition of picking lotus in the south of China, so there are many poems praising lotus picking.
History, varieties, cultivation and utilization of lotus.
Lotus varieties
It is a traditional cultivated variety in Beijing. Single petal pattern. The bud is peach-shaped, green, with red upper part and white flowers. The flowering period is early, starting in early June, and the group flowering period is about 1 month. Lotus roots knot early. In late July, the new lotus root turned over for the second time, and the flowering period can last until about 10. Natural variation of red lotus and pink lotus.
It is a traditional cultivated variety in Xiamen. Single petal pattern. The bud is peach-shaped, green, reddish at the top, white in pollen, and reddish at the end of the initial flowering period. Flowering begins in early June, and the group flowering period is 1 month. It has long and thin petals, small receptacle, many leafy flowers and easy flowering.
This is a famous variety widely cultivated. Double flower type. The buds are round peach-shaped, purple-red, with many flowers and red flowers. Flowering begins in mid-June, and the group flowering period is 1 month. Bright colors make potted plants bloom easily.
An ancient bowl lotus. Double flower type. The buds are peach-shaped, pink, with white pollen and red petals. There are many flowers, which begin to bloom in late June, and the group flowering period is 1 month, so potted plants are easy to bloom.
Breeding from Hangzhou Garden in Zhejiang Province. These plants are short. Single petal pattern. The buds are peach-shaped and green, and the flowers are small and white. Very suitable for pot cultivation. There are many flowers, and the flowering period is from mid-June to mid-August.
The history of lotus:
The scientific name of lotus is lotus, which belongs to the genus Nelumbo of Nymphaeaceae.
Lotus root It is one of the earliest species of angiosperms. According to the fossils studied by paleobotanists, lotus plants were distributed in many waters in the northern hemisphere10.35 billion years ago. At that time, in the late period of the rapid decline of the giant reptile dinosaur, its growth time on the earth was much earlier than the appearance of human ancestors (2 million years ago). According to Paleobotany (1965) by A.H. Christophevich of the former Soviet Union, lotus fossils have been found in Cretaceous strata in the Arctic of North America and amur river Basin of Asia (i.e. Heilongjiang), as well as Oligocene and Miocene strata in Europe and East Asia (Sakhalin Island) and Japan. At that time, the temperature on the earth was warmer than it is now. There were about 10~ 12 species of lotus plants distributed in five continents. With the advent of the post-glacial period, the global temperature dropped, making many plants extinct, while others were forced to drift away, completely breaking the original geographical distribution. Because of this disaster, two varieties of lotus survived, and their distribution range narrowed. Chinese lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is distributed in Asia and northern Oceania, and N.lutea drifts to North America. Paleobotanists also pointed out that the lotus fossils from Pleistocene to Holocene (2 million years ago) excavated in Hokkaido and Kyoto are similar to modern China lotus; The lotus leaf fossils unearthed in Qaidam Basin, China, 6.5438+million years ago are similar to modern China lotus. In 1970s, China Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development Planning, Ministry of Petrochemical Industry and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences recorded in the book "Early Tertiary Sporopollen in Coastal Areas of Bohai Sea" that two kinds of lotus pollen fossils were found in Panshan, Liaoning, Beidagang, Tianjin, Kenli, Guangrao, Shandong and Cangzhou, Hebei. Fossils of the genus Nelumbo were also found in the strata of Changchang Basin in Qiongshan, Hainan Island, China, in the Tertiary tropical phytogeographical region. At present, the original wild lotus is still distributed in lakes and swamps in Fuyuan, Hulin, Tongjiang and Shangzhi counties of Heilongjiang Province. The above shows that lotus is an ancient plant before the Ice Age, which belongs to the representative of relict plant, such as Paeonia suffruticosa, Ginkgo biloba, Liriodendron chinense in China, Sequoia sempervirens and so on. , not swallowed by the glaciers of the ice age and survived.
Mystery of waterproof and self-cleaning of Erlianye
Numerous micron-sized waxy papillae structures are attached to the surface of lotus leaves. When observing these papillae with electron microscope, we can see that many nanoparticles with similar structures are attached to the surface of each micron-sized papillae, which scientists call the micro-nano dual structure of lotus leaf. It is these tiny double structures that make the contact area between the lotus leaf surface and water droplets or dust very limited, so there is a phenomenon that water droplets roll on the leaf surface and take away dust. Water will not stay on the surface of lotus leaves.
Scientific explanation of three kinds of fracture relations
When it comes to lotus, it is natural to mention lotus root. Holland belongs to Nymphaeaceae, a perennial herb planted in shallow ponds. Its stem was born in the mud and transformed into rhizome, that is, lotus root, also called lotus root. Lotus root grows horizontally in silt and absorbs nutrients by fibrous roots on the base stem. Lotus root has been a favorite food since ancient times, because its meat is crisp and tender, slightly sweet, contains a lot of starch and is rich in nutrition.
When we break the lotus root, we can observe that countless long white lotus roots are connected between the broken lotus roots. Why is this happening?
It is necessary to observe the structure of lotus root. It turns out that the tissues needed for plants to grow and transport water and nutrients are called ducts and tracheids. These tissues extend in all directions in plants and are as unimpeded as blood vessels in animals in leaves, stems, flowers, fruits and other organs.
The inner wall of the plant vessel will be particularly thickened at a certain position, forming various textures, some are annular, some are trapezoidal and some are reticulate. The thickened part of the lotus root catheter wall is continuous spiral, which is called spiral catheter. When the lotus root breaks, the spiral part of the inner wall of the catheter is separated and becomes a spiral filament with a diameter of only 3 ~ 5 microns. These filaments are much like stretched springs and will not break within the elastic limit. Generally, it can be stretched to about 10 cm.
Lotus root silk not only exists in lotus root, but also exists in lotus stem and lotus leaf, but is more slender. If you pick a lotus stalk, try to break it into several pieces and lift it like a long string of small green lanterns. It is this filament that connects these little green lanterns. This kind of filament looks very similar. If you look at it under a microscope, you will find that it is actually composed of 3 ~ 8 thinner filaments, just like a cotton yarn is composed of countless cotton fibers.
The delicate lingering of lotus root silk has long attracted the attention of the ancients. There is a sentence in Qufu, a poem written by Meng Jiao in the Tang Dynasty: "My heart is in the lotus root, although it is broken, it is still connected". Later, people used the idiom "broken silk" to describe that although the relationship was broken, the relationship was still connected.