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The Journey of Chinese Plants
浏览次数:1185次 更新时间:2020-06-09

This article is from:I am Feifan of Efifan/Wudao Chinese Exquisite Life/Capital Radio&TV


 

Famous British Botanist E.H.Wilson once said, "every seed in gardens in the temperate zone of North hemisphere is originated from China." I used to doubt it until I saw this documentary The Journey of Chinese Plants.

It is a large-scale botanic documentary. Since it has been released, even the harsh Douban users gave it a high score of 8.7. The scenes in the documentary are breathtaking, and countless people on social media praise it ——every frame can be used as a screen saver; this is a god-given film; it is a visual feast. The idyllic spirit and greatness of plants were all captured by the camera.

 




Saussurea medusa Maxim

Before humankind appears, Saussurea medusa Maxim bloomed in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, where the average temperature was below zero, and over six months of the year was covered in snow. She has to wait lonelily for ten years to bloom once in a lifetime since sprout. This beauty has been spread as the symbol of pray and remorse.

But no matter how many loves people have for it, when a flower's heart is warm, the sky is blue. They say that flowers do not bloom for anyone.

 

Alocasia macrorrhiza

Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is located at the southern border of China, and Alocasia macrorrhiza, which grows in the rainforest, protects itself by release toxin through leaf veins. But as the old saying goes, you have your strategy, and I own my solution. The plant's world only seems peaceful, but there is danger underneath. A beetle as big as fingernail found Alocasia macrorrhiza among the massive forest, but it won't eat instantly, it will cut a circle with his jaw on a leaf to stop the toxin from releasing, and then enjoy its food slowly. Species' determination of evolution can not be undermined when it comes to food.

 

Davidia involucrata Baill

 Davidia involucrata Baill, which survived the Quaternary glaciation, still grows in the south Yangtze River. It's bracts turn into white from green and are super soft. It is hard to imagine it survived extreme coldness.

 

Oryza sativa

Before they met humans, they were just wild grass. But even a weak thing has a way of living. They inhabited in swaps where common animals or plants could not enter. They hide when they ripe to multiply; their hidden tips are full of barbs to survive. Over the past ten million years, they pollen themselves. At the beginning of life, wild Oryza sativa had to grow leaves and spring up before the energy in the seed burned out. Every time was a life or death situation. After they met humans, humans help them to multiply, so they removed their barbs, and ripen seeds stopped fell off by themselves but to wait for the human to collect. Even though humans tamed them, they and humankind need each other's help, Oryza sativa did not loss their original life's purpose —— live to die.

 

Tea-leaf

Expert for Oryza sativa, Chinese tea-leaf influences the world economy and people's lives the most. Tea-leaf is andromonoecious, as the same as Oryza sativa, but it insists on cross-pollination. Seeking far and neglect what lies close at hand is difficult, but the inherits of genes require every individual to continuously work and try so that they would have a hope for surviving in this cruel nature. The roots of the slim tea tree are twice longer than its twigs on the surface. When it was still a sprout, it protects its leaves, because leaves are critical survival tools.

To avoid the invasion of beetles, they force themselves to spread particular odor pheromones to draw the natural enemy of beetles. To defense germs, which is everywhere in nature, they continuously spread their unique defense system——caffeine, green tea polyphenols, L-Theanine, etc.. After escaping from the dark bottom, tea tree can grow until 20 meters high. However, it can not grow up without scruple, and it has to control its height cautiously. Otherwise, the intense sunlight can burn its leaves, so it has to keep a distance from the highest place in the forest, which keeps it alive.

 

Other than that, the tee trees we are familiar with are bushes which are less than a meter high. To adapt to the environment's changes, they grow branches after breaking out from underground and shrink their leaves. To protect themselves from natural disasters, they force themselves to duplicate their genes, which is a miracle that modern science can not explain even now.

Tea tree survived the agriculture era and the Industrial Revolution. In the natural world, it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive one to change. Tea tree is lucky; even though it does not have sweet fruits, it still becomes a culture because of its bitterness. Chinese tea trees are now growing in over 60 countries worldwide and influenced the lives of over three billion people in Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and Oceania.

Tea can not be separated from the world now.

 

Bamboo

Chinese scholars have loved bamboo from the ancient time, and compare it as the gentlemen of flowers. Bamboo appears to be green and stand aloof from worldly success, but underneath is a whole different story. Bamboo fights every second and fights for every inch of territory. Every year after a spring rain, spring bamboo shoots emerge from underground and grow up. They used all their energy to draw forces, and all they want is to grow taller and taller, some of them can grow two meters in a day.

After fifty days, every baby bamboo has a different path. Some of them can be over twenty meters tall and become beautiful bamboo, whereas others stop grow and become bamboo shoots and then die or be eaten by humans in the end.

It turns out that bamboo is not a tree but a kind of grass. Probably a whole forest of bamboos originated from one single root. All the spring bamboo shoots are its babies, but its energy is limited, so the babies are on their own. The bamboos that used all their power to grow up can become a member of the bamboo forest.

 

Prunus mira

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has the highest altitude in the world, the mountain road here are winding and covered in snow all year round. Brahmaputra stretch in here and an ancient pink tree is standing by the water. It is Prunus mira, the ancestor of peach. Prunus mira has been standing there ever since the glacial period hundreds of millions of years ago.

The altitude here is high, and the temperature is low, so there are no animals to spread its pollen, but without pollen, it can not multiply. It strives to bloom only to wait for the wind to come. When the wind blows up its pink flowers, and it is like pink snow. The snowflakes traveled a long way to go to many places such as slopes, fields from the plateau, and then slowly become fruity peaches that everyone loves.

 

Rheum Nobile

The condition of the Himalaya Mountains is terrible, and almost nothing can grow there, and even meadow has limited spaces and afraid of spread. But Rheum Nobile gives up the meadow and set root in the isolated clay soil. It chooses plain makeup and red leaves, so it would look tasteless to avoid being eaten by animals.

It only blooms once a year, and it can wait for ten or forty to fifty years to bloom glamorously.

When Rheum Nobile blooms, it's inflorescence can grow over two meters. Can one imagine seeing a yellow tower in the middle of nothingness? It looks like a miracle, and this is why people name it Ta Huang(which means yellow tower). But when Rheum Nobile blooms, it means its life is coming to an end.

At the last moments of its life, it sacrifices its growth to grow yellow petals, and it can no longer nurture itself. However, the petals protect fungus gnats like a greenhouse, and fungus gnats can multiply as well as pollinate for Rheum Nobile so that the seeds can ripen.

 













In the plants' world, they either have sad stories, isolated from the world, or growing along the way. No matter what time it is, plants' longing for life refreshes our knowledge. Just like what the director said, "we use the camera to document the behavior of plants, tell their stories, and build the life archives of plants through images. Eventually, we become in awe of life."

It is obvious how fragile and solemn life is in the world of plants.

 









 

 The Journey of Chinese Plants is a documentary dedicates to the plants that are on Chinese soil. China has over thirty-five thousand kinds of plants, which is ten percent of plants worldwide. Those plants shaped Chinese culture, supplied abundant necessities of life, influenced Chinese science and technology, effected Chinese literature, art, and music. History carried them all around the world, and they colored various counties and nationalities. This documentary searched the origin of Chinese culture and discovered the relationship between humans and plants. This documentary is about life and love, science and aesthetics, and everything in one. They took three years to accomplish this documentary, and they went to 93 regions in 27 provinces, districts, and cities in China and went to over 30 regions in seven countries. This is the first large-scale botanical documentary in China.


Famous documentary director —— Li Chengcai

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