Acer truncatum Bunge in Tongxiang, with huge fruit shape, deep red skin, abnormal fragrance, sweet and delicious, ranks first among all plums, and is a treasure among plums and a famous product in Tongxiang. In ancient times, it was often used as a tribute to the emperor and was well known. Plum originated in the ancient city of Licheng. Du Fu's "Spring and Autumn Annals" foreword: "There is Li Cheng in the southwest of Jiaxing County today, and his real estate name is Kerry." [ 1]
[Edit this paragraph] Grade value
Acer truncatum is a rare and famous fruit with a long history, which is unique to Jiaxing and has been famous all over the world since ancient times. According to the authoritative word book Shuo Wen Jie Zi, it is said that it is "mashing wood", which means hitting and seems to mean pruning. It also has other aliases, such as drunken Li He, which are not common in modern times. Maple plum is a kind of plum. The origin of plums is in China, and there are all kinds of plums in Jiaxing, such as Madame Mei, Hongmei, Purple Mei and Yumei. Pan Yuanmei and Xu Yuanli were also called good products in Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, Acer truncatum is different from all kinds of plums, because it is of high quality and delicious taste. It is called a peerless product and a fairy fruit, and its fruit is also different from ordinary plums. According to the introduction of literature and horticulture, Acer truncatum is native to Jiaxing and belongs to deciduous subgenus of Rosaceae. It is generally three or four meters high, slightly apricot-shaped, with open branches, purple-brown trunk, oval and smooth leaves, and its branches and leaves are different from those of ordinary plums. Modern Acer truncatum seedlings are all raised by grafting, and the rootstocks are mostly peach trees or wild plums. According to the literature, in ancient times, the multi-branch root transplantation or layering seedling raising method of plum is no longer used in modern times. In modern times, Acer truncatum can bear fruit after six or seven years' cultivation and three or four years' proper cultivation, and it can bear fruit after three or four years' young peach trees are used as rootstocks. Tree age 10 to 20 years, gradually aging after 20 years, and the life span can reach 40 years. Acer truncatum generally blooms in front of Tomb-Sweeping Day, which is in full bloom. The normal flowering period is about one week to ten days, and the bad weather is only two or three days. The pistil of Acer negundo is small and dense, silvery white in color, clean and concise in flower quality, full of branches, glittering and translucent as snow in the distance, lined with fresh green leaves, clear and fresh. The ancients said, "Plum blossoms are as clear as snow", "white as smoke", "elegant and pure are better than plum blossoms" and "entering Plum Garden is like entering Xiangxue Sea", which is of great ornamental value. After flowering, the fruit will bear fruit in about two months, and the fruit will mature in a few days before and after the slight summer heat. Among the green leaves, there is a little crimson. The ancients said that "children become red clouds thick", forming a series of beautiful scenery. Acer truncatum fruit is round, slightly flat, with short pedicel and flat bottom, which can be placed flat on the dining table (other tree species cannot be placed flat). When mature, its skin is dark red with yellow spots, some are half yellow and half red, and there are yellow spots in the red area. The fruit is covered with white powder. Some fruits have a texture mark on the top. Like the marks carved by people's nails, this is the so-called claw mark of the stone that has been handed down through the ages. When the plum is ripe, it glows red from its neck. The flesh inside the skin is yellow, fresh and moist like amber, and turns into a mass of pulp. Whether the pulp becomes pulp when it is ripe is considered by predecessors as the main basis for distinguishing the authenticity of Acer truncatum Bunge. Whether it is picking or eating, we must seize this opportunity. If it's too raw, it won't melt into pulp, but it will only taste sweet. If it is too ripe, it will lose its pulp. The elegant way to eat is to gently wipe off the fruit powder, peel off a small mouth on the skin, and let the pulp be sucked up at once, leaving only a fruit tendon, such as gold thread, to connect the fruit core. The fruit is delicious and has a slight fragrance. People who have eaten the true variety of Acer truncatum in ancient and modern times are full of praise, calling it "nectar and jade liquid" and "like nectar and jade liquid", which are evaluated above all kinds of fruits.
[Edit this paragraph] Product Legend
There is a claw mark on the top of Acer negundo which looks like a fingernail. It is said that this is the mark left by the beauty stone. A long time ago, during the Spring and Autumn Period, Bai Tao was originally the border of wuyue. Here, the ideal city is the famous Li in Vietnam. During the Spring and Autumn Period, wuyue often fought wars, and the State of Yue was defeated by the State of Wu, so Gou Jian, the king of Yue, had to retreat to Huiji and became the minister of the State of Wu. Gou Jian suffered great humiliation and vowed to avenge himself. When he learned that Fu Cha, the prince of Wu, was lewd, he decided to adopt the "honey trap" of Minister Wen Zi. He sent wise ministers to Zhuluo Village in Zhuji to look for a smart, beautiful and patriotic girl Shi, and prepared to dedicate it to the king of Wu. Shi Ming understood the intention of the King of Yue. In order to wash away the shame of national subjugation, she resolutely compromised and married the enemy. She studied court etiquette and silk and bamboo dance in Huiji for three years. In the spring of this year, escorted by a group of maids, she got into a BMW car, drove from Huiji, crossed Qiantang and went north along the ancient road. Along the way, I saw willow green like smoke and spring flowers like fire. When they passed Li Cheng, they looked up and saw plum trees and snow-white plum blossoms everywhere, clustered into a ball and covered with branches, just like Xue Hai. Seeing this beautiful scenery, Shi couldn't help feeling nostalgic for his native land. He couldn't help sighing in a low voice: "The plum blossoms in my hometown are fragrant with homesickness. When will he come back here? " When entering the Wu Palace, Fu Cha, the king of Wu, was moved by her beauty, and alone with her stayed all day. In order to please her, the king of Wu always caters to her needs. First of all, Shi Jean selects the tributes sent from all over the country. This summer, the state of Yue gave Wang Yi Wu a batch of plums. Fu Cha immediately ordered the maids to give these plums to Shi for tasting. Shi heard that this is the plum blossom sent by the old country, and was deeply moved, recalling the scene of a spring trip to the pear garden. She really wants to have a pair of wings and fly back to Vietnam at once, so she has no mood to taste these plums. After a while, the prince of Wu entered the palace and saw the plums sent by the maids still intact on the table. He said, "Effie, why don't you try such a good tribute?" Stone road: "This plum has been picked for a long time, and it is not fresh." "I ordered them to send some fresh plums at once!" The king of Wu said that he would convey the purport. Shi shook his hand and said, "The two places are far apart, and it is difficult to keep them fresh because of the delay in the journey. I want to go to the pear garden to pick and taste it myself. " It is said that Shi is going to travel to taste plums, and the king of Wu should have a taste. So, a group of ladies-in-waiting were chosen to accompany Shi to Li Yuan. When Shi came to Licheng, he was very happy when he returned to his motherland. Just outside the city, plum trees are arranged in rows, and the trees are covered with deep red plums. The scenery is beautiful and moving. Surrounded by a group of maids, she strolled towards Li Yuan. Mature Li Zihong is green, covered with yellow spots and white powder, and has an attractive taste. Shi picked one at random and gently pinched it on the top of the plum with his nails. Suddenly, the juice overflowed and the fragrance came to the nose. Put it in your mouth and suck it. Plum juice is like sweet wine. Shi took a few pills and got drunk. Since then, people have named the plums here "drunken plums". Because "drunk" and "beech" are homophones, and this city is called beech, people later called the plums here beech. Strange to say, since Shi came to the pear garden, Acer truncatum, which grows here, has a scar at the top of the fruit that looks like a claw mark. It is said that this is the nail print left by the stone when eating plums, and it is called "the claw print of the stone". Just like the peony has the fingerprint of your wife, it has been passed down through the ages and is cited as a beautiful talk. Zhu Zhu Wa, the Qing Dynasty Taishi, once wrote in Song of Yuanhu: "I heard that the stone was pinched, and a claw mark has been added so far."
[Edit this paragraph] Planting history
Five-pointed maple is produced in Jiaxing and has a long history. According to ancient literature. In the Spring and Autumn Period of the 5th century BC, there was already a place name of Li in the city, and the local chronicles of past dynasties recorded that "the place was named after the fruit". Accordingly, Li has been in Jiaxing for at least 2,500 years. According to legend, it was widely planted in China during the Spring and Autumn Period, but there is no literature record. The poem "A Pure Plum" written by children in the Southern Song Dynasty was first recorded in the planting of characters. This exact record has also been nearly a thousand years ago. Many documents in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties said that Jingxiang Temple in Jiaxing produced Acer truncatum, which was the main producing area of Acer truncatum in ancient Jiaxing. In the early Qing Dynasty, Jingxiang Temple was divided into ten rooms, each with several beech trees, and it was estimated that there were only fifty or sixty in total. In the Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, the dwellings in Yaoan, Niigata Taiping Temple, Wangdian, Jiaxing, Niigata, Xincheng, Taishiqiao and Liuliyan were also planted sporadically, mostly directly introduced or indirectly propagated from Jingxiang Temple. Because of Li's high reputation, feudal officials in past dynasties often extorted offerings from Jingxiang Temple, and the monks in the temple were not willing to cultivate them, so the fruit trees gradually declined. In the preface of Zhu Yizun's "Li Fu" in the early Qing Dynasty, he said: "Li is in Dongjingxiang Temple in the county, which is needed by the officials who are suffering from it. Many monks in the temple have been cut down, so there is nothing to worry about in the future! " By the middle of Qing Dynasty, there were only more than 20 Acer negundo trees in Jingxiang Temple, and there were no growers in each village.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the Tudian area in Tongxiang and the Li family in Qi Xin, Jiaxing became the concentrated production areas in Qi Xin. Acer truncatum was originally planted in Tudian area, and the original seed was also introduced from Jingxiang Temple. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, planting was popularized and formed on a large scale in the past 100 years. Located in Taoyuantou Village, Baitao Township, with a planting area of seven or eight square kilometers. Before the Anti-Japanese War, there were more than 200 acres of plum orchards and tens of thousands of plum trees, with an annual output of 30,000 to 40,000 Jin, which were sold to Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places and had a wide influence. This place was once established as the hometown of beech, and it also claimed to be the location of the ancient beech Li Cheng in Taoyuan, so in the society at that time, this place was regarded as the birthplace of beech, and "Tongxiang Beech" became famous all over the world. A few years before the Anti-Japanese War, the output in this area declined, with an annual output of only 10,000 Jin. During the Anti-Japanese War, the losses were serious and completely destroyed. Li planted plums in Jiaxing Qixin No.7 Factory, which began in Jiaqing period. The real name of Qichang Village is Shen Xi, and Li Yuanye is a Chinese medicine practitioner in the village. At that time, he saw that the plum trees in the nearby Jingxiang Temple were dying, so he begged several saplings from the temple to open a garden for transplantation. After three or four generations 100 years of breeding, there were several acres of plum orchards and more than 200 Acer truncatum in Guangxu of Qing Dynasty, which were pure in variety and were called "Longhu Acer truncatum". As a family, Li has a wide range of handover and influence. During his stay in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Li Yuan was destroyed by gunfire. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, there were many plums with six eyes in Haiyan. According to statistics, the annual output value reached 20,000 yuan in the years before the Anti-Japanese War. Are they all authentic plums? Lack of records, also said that the quality is inferior. As for Jingxiang Temple, there were no plums in Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty. In the 1920s and 1930s, monks moved back to the plum garden in Qichang to plant four kinds of plants to decorate historic sites. There was only one after the Anti-Japanese War, and it no longer exists after liberation. In the 1920s and 1930s, in addition to Qixiang Temple and Jingxiang Temple, only Xinhuang, Zhu Lin, Qiao Feng and Yuxiandi in Jiaxing County were planted sporadically. Jiaxing Nursery, the city railway, reported that Acer truncatum was also planted in the garden across the river. After the late Qing Dynasty, Acer truncatum planting also spread abroad. During the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, when Liu, the magistrate of Jiaxing County, left his post, he asked the Li family of Qi Liang to take two seedlings to Jiangxi. In the early years of the Republic of China, Hangzhou Wuyun Farm transplanted two Acer truncatum trees from Tongxiang, and then propagated them to the gardening field of Zhejiang University Agricultural College, Xiaoshan Hu Xiang Farm, Nanjing Jinling University Farm and other places, and also planted them in Renpu Orchard near Hangzhou Zhakou. In 1930s, authorities in Zhejiang Province and Jiaxing County discussed and planned to revive Acer truncatum Bunge, and all walks of life responded in succession. Li Jing Township was established near Jingxiang Temple in Jiaxing. 1930, Cheng Ruji, an agricultural technician in Jiaxing County, invested 2000 yuan to set up an orchard in Yuxiandai, collected different varieties of Acer truncatum, divided them into five strains, named them according to the classification of 1 No.5, and planted them for comparison, with the intention of cultivating high-quality varieties. 1935, Jiaxing county established Qiliyuan near the East Tower, and began to carry out systematic tests and popularization. Shortly after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese artillery destroyed Qiliyuan, and everything went up in smoke.
After liberation, the production of Acer truncatum Bunge was attached importance by the party and government. Tongxiang county once sent samples of Acer truncatum to Beijing for exhibition. 1958, at the request of Comrade Zhu De, Zhejiang sent 12 Acer Li Miao to Beijing for breeding. 196 1 year, according to the requirements of Jiaxing area and Tongxiang County, the provincial government allocated special funds to support Tongxiang County to rebuild Meiyuan in Baitao Township. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, leading organs in Jiaxing, Tongxiang and other cities and counties vigorously developed Acer truncatum planting, and gave strong support in policies, materials, seedling supply and scientific and technological services, so that Acer truncatum production gradually recovered and developed. There are more than 2,000 fruit trees in Bai Tao Town, Tongxiang, and more than 400 in Qiao Feng Town, Jiaxing. Many farmers plant them in other towns and villages. In recent years, the leading organs of provinces and cities have increased their support, allocated more special funds, strengthened scientific and technological guidance, and used modern means to promote cultivation, striving to achieve high quality and stable production of plum blossoms.
Acer truncatum is delicious, but it is difficult to cultivate, and the yield has been unstable and not high. In the past, in the heyday, each tree generally produced one or two hundred kilograms or twenty or thirty kilograms of fruit, but in the lean years, the yield was very small, even one or twenty kilograms or two or three kilograms per tree. Some farmers are eager to have a good year and yield, and the fruits are not rare, which leads to the extension of the "off-year" period, the decline of quality or the shortening of tree age. The development of Acer truncatum is greatly influenced by objective natural conditions, and many small pistils degenerate. It is difficult to pollinate itself, and it is tender and easy to be polluted. In case of sudden cold or wind and rain, especially fog, it cannot bear fruit. In the old society, due to the limitation of social and production conditions, a set of applicable production technologies was not formed, and the yield and non-harvest years alternated. Become a rule. Zhu Mengxian's "Lipu" said: "Ten years, the prolific are only two years, the ordinary are about four years, the least is about three years, and none is about one year. After being born countless times, it will be deserted every two to three years. " This situation has not improved so far, but due to the deterioration of natural conditions and the intensification of environmental pollution, the production situation is even more depressed. Since 1994, some concentrated production areas have had poor harvests or even no harvests for many years. Therefore, it is urgent to improve its living conditions, summarize and improve its technical guidance, and further strengthen support from all sides.
[Edit this paragraph] Product culture
After thousands of years of cultural accumulation, the planting and fruit tasting of Acer truncatum have been closely related to Jiaxing's local history, geography and culture. Around Acer truncatum, there are many cultural deposits. Watching Acer truncatum Bunge is not only a delicacy, but also a colorful traditional cultural activity.
As a cultural phenomenon, the relationship between fruit and place names is inseparable. Plum is an ancient place name in Jiaxing, which later evolved into the nickname and representative names of several counties in China. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, wuyue and China waged a fierce war in Li Fengyun. This historical fact was recorded in the Confucian classic Spring and Autumn Annals written by Confucius and another ancient book, Zuo Zhuan. Later generations' records: there are different opinions about the land, such as city, township and ruins, and some "relics" such as pavilions and pools have also been derived. According to legend, the origin of Li's name is "this place is named after fruit". Since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, all the local chronicles and historical books that people can see hold this view. Accordingly, there are countless historical facts and anecdotes surrounding the fruit of Acer negundo, which arouse people's discussion and nostalgia; Because the word "Acer truncatum" was written by Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Annals, the status of Acer truncatum fruit also rose accordingly, so it was highly respected by people. Li is also associated with the legendary ancient beauty stone, making it more precious. According to legend, when the teacher entered Wu and passed through Jiaxing, he tasted Acer truncatum and left nail marks when picking the fruit. Since then, this fruit has been handed down from generation to generation, leaving a mark. This legend has been passed down from mouth to mouth. People know it is absurd, but they still talk about it. Literati use poetry to recite and describe, which adds the color of Li Huali. Li's legend is also related to astronomical phenomena. Legend has it that the Big Dipper in the sky is in charge of fruit trees. In summer, the handle of the Big Dipper faces south, pointing to wuyue. Acer truncatum is transformed from the "aura" of the jade star on the handle, adding a layer of mystery to Acer truncatum. These legends, together with many other allusions, are cited as stories for future generations. Therefore, appreciating and tasting plums has become an endless local cultural habit. In the old days, literati enjoyed flowers and fruits in spring and summer, gathered together to chant, wrote inscriptions and drew pictures, and the host invited guests to taste the beautiful scenery and collect poems and books, all of which were elegant moves. People also give Acer truncatum as a valuable gift to senior officials, celebrities, relatives and friends, filled with bamboo boxes with banana leaves at the bottom and covered with silk, and sent them to places as far away as Suzhou and Hangzhou by special personnel. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the price of "Fanyin" was one yuan per catty of plums. At that time, it was still in short supply and it was not easy to buy. For thousands of years, connoisseurs have left many poems, paintings and calligraphy, enriching the local culture. The prosperity of Longhu can be seen from the plum tree and its inscription. [2]