For so many years, I am not familiar with the community environment and have never wandered around the community. Because the epidemic was closed in the community, I got a comprehensive understanding of this community that I have lived in for twelve years for the first time.
This morning, I finished my nucleic acid and went to the market to buy food. A strong fragrance wafted from a distance. It is particularly clear when it spreads in the clean and cool air in the morning.
Just in the corner downstairs in front of my house, there is a Ligustrum lucidum in full bloom.
This smell is too familiar.
On the Dongshan Mountain in Haining, at the eastern foot of the mountain, there is a large area of Ligustrum lucidum with small leaves, which will bloom intensively in early summer every year. Walking on the mountain road, I am always shocked by this large white Ligustrum lucidum flower.
The path is covered with white flowers, and the sunken branches extend all the way to the middle of the road, and pedestrians even have to bend down to drill down. The rich fragrance wraps you, and the flowers of Ligustrum lucidum are in the breathing room. That unique smell is the sawdust smell from sawwood.
On sunny days, the fragrance is particularly strong. Bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered.
As far as I can remember, the flowering season of Ligustrum lucidum is slightly later than that of Azadirachta indica, and it always reaches its climax when the flowers of Azadirachta indica wither.
These days, Ligustrum lucidum is about to enter its heyday.
The Woods on the hillside are dotted with clusters of Ligustrum lucidum flowers, and the crown is full of white flowers, which is also particularly conspicuous. Seen from a distance, it is easy to identify.
Two years ago, after I sent my children to school every day, I always climbed a circle of Dongshan.
In those years, I was too familiar with the plants on Dongshan Mountain in Haining. Familiar with their cyclical changes throughout the year, bloom flowers fall, sprout and wither, and the years are orderly.
There are many varieties of Ligustrum lucidum. The natural growth on Dongshan Mountain is Ligustrum microphyllum. Old people often say "Holly, ash tree".
N years ago, I planted Ligustrum lucidum with golden leaves at the foot of the national wall.
But shrubs, not small trees, have similar flowers, which are not so fragrant.
Today, I feel close to the smell of Ligustrum lucidum, just like the rich fragrance of orange tree flowers I remember.
Li Shizhen described Ligustrum lucidum in Compendium of Materia Medica: "This wood is fragrant with holly and has virtue of chastity, so it looks like Ligustrum lucidum."
Here is another story about Ligustrum lucidum:
According to legend, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, there was a member of Lin 'an Prefecture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang (now Hangzhou) with only one daughter under his knee. She is 28 years old, dignified in appearance, graceful and moving, and proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting.
Members are regarded as the apple of their eyes, and the pursuers are endless, and the ladies don't agree.
But I was eager to get promoted and get rich, so I betrothed my daughter to the county magistrate to honor my ancestors. Miss Na Zhi is privately engaged to a government teacher for life, but she doesn't like those playboys. On the wedding day, she swallowed her anger and bumped into a dead girl in the boudoir, which showed that she was determined not to marry the teacher.
The teacher heard that the young lady's double suicide was like a bolt from the blue, depression became a disease, tea and rice did not think about it, and in a few days, she faded and her hair turned white.
This is a story found on the Internet. But I still don't understand this legend. Is it about a lady who looks like a privet tree, or the teacher whose hair turns white, like a privet tree with white flowers after flowering?
And the flower language of Ligustrum lucidum is-"health".
It is said that the fruit of this plant has a characteristic that it will not fall from the branches all winter. When birds have no feed and are starving, the fruit of Holly can just sustain life. So its flower language is "fate".
But I don't like this legend at all. Most stories about women's chastity end on the premise that women sacrifice their lives, which makes me very uncomfortable.
Speaking of the "chastity" significance of Ligustrum lucidum, in my heart, it is far less cheerful than the "two rooms under one roof" of camphor tree.
Speaking of camphor trees in the south of the Yangtze River, there is another interesting legend:
In the past, a large family in Jiangnan had a daughter, so they planted two camphor trees in the yard. When the girl comes of age, the matchmaker sees the tall camphor tree in the yard and knows that there will be a matchmaker to fix her up when a girl grows up at home. Before the girl got married, the camphor tree was cut down and made into two camphor wood boxes filled with silk. As one of the dowry of girls, its good oral color is "two boxes of silk together", that is, the homonym of "two boxes of silk".
The flowers of Ligustrum lucidum are actually very similar to those of Cinnamomum camphora. Just a different color.
The flowers of Ligustrum lucidum are white, and those of Cinnamomum camphora are pale yellow. Similarly, it is dense and subdivided flowers. Hidden in the thick leaves.
The season when camphor trees also bloom is also the early summer season, which is synchronous with Ligustrum lucidum.
Camphor tree flowers also have fragrance, which is faint and bitter. This is in sharp contrast with Ligustrum lucidum.
A few years ago, when I was in the countryside, I especially liked walking on the asphalt road with camphor trees on both sides at night, smelling the bitter fragrance of camphor trees in the night, and my thoughts were in chaos.
The year in Na Yue was the most difficult period of my life.
Looking back now, there was no lack of tranquility and precipitation during that time.
Today, I suddenly smelled the rich fragrance of Ligustrum lucidum, which reminded me of those days two years ago. I had to get up early and go to bed late every day to take care of my children.
Although hard, I see children twittering in front of me every day, and the flowers and trees on Dongshan are thriving; The beauty of nature, the intention of creation and the care of heaven, I also really felt it in my hard work and busyness.
I think this world is worth it, and I don't waste this life.
May 4, 2022, sunny
Community Ligustrum lucidum (discovered only today)