When I was a child, I only knew that the shell and meat of dried litchi were brown. When I was in primary school, my teacher taught Bai Juyi an Introduction to Litchi Map, and read that "the shell is like a red ribbon, the membrane is like a purple ribbon, the meat is like Bai Rubing snow, and the pulp is as sweet and sour as cheese". Litchi will be red, which is really incomprehensible! Litchi meat, Bai Rubing snow, isn't it even more strange? Ask the teacher a question, the teacher has never seen fresh litchi, and the explanation is not clear, so he has to give up. If it is now, even if the teacher has never seen fresh lychees, he can find out scientific materials and explain them to the pupils who are a little obsessed.
Bai Juyi described the shape of litchi with concrete brushstrokes, but there are some shortcomings. Tapirs are silk fabrics, which are smooth, but litchi shells are rough. In the terminology of fruit science, there are small and thick lobes on the surface of litchi shell, which are called lobes like tortoise shells. There is a prominent part in the center of the leaf, some of which are as sharp as thorns. This is the so-called flaky peak. Lobes are dense in size and flat in peak value, which varies with different varieties.
Ripe lychees are mostly dark red or purple. Born at the head of a tree, of course, you can't see its shell structure from a distance, only red comes into view, so it is very realistic to compare it to "crimson capsule", "red star" and "coral bead". As for the whole tree, even a forest, it will become a beautiful scenery of "flying flames want to wear the sky" and "red clouds are heavy". Litchi ripens in Guangdong from late April to July, and in Fujian from late June to August, with the peak in July. "Zhou Nan June Litchi Egg" refers to June of the lunar calendar, which coincides with July of the solar calendar. Litchi is also reddish, such as "March Red" and "Guilv" produced in Guangdong. There is also a kind of Huangmei, which is light yellow and reddish.
Litchi is heart-shaped, oval or round, usually with a large pedicle and a slightly smaller top. The pedicel is slightly prominent around it, which is called fruit shoulder; Some are high and low. The top is called the fruit top, round or pointed. There is a groove from the top of the fruit to both sides of the pedicle, which is called suture. Appearance and concealment vary from species to species. There are some rare species in the old records, such as "dragon teeth" as slender as fingers and "pearls" as small as pearls. They are now extinct because of their lack of economic value.
Litchi is generally three or four centimeters in diameter and weighs more than ten or twenty grams. In the 1960s, Guangdong investigated and found that there were goose egg-shaped Dali and clove-shaped Dali, weighing 40 to 50 grams. There is also the "Nanmu Leaf" produced in Hejiang, Sichuan. "Atlas of Improved Fruit Trees in Sichuan" says that the weight is about19g, while "Cultivation in china fruit" says that big fruit weighs 60g.
The so-called "film is like purple gauze" refers to the white film that clings to the inner wall of the shell. To call it "like purple gauze" is to mistake the pattern on the inner wall of the shell for the pattern of the membrane. In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Bo wrote a poem "Ode to Litchi Membrane", which describes throwing the shell and membrane on the ground when eating litchi, as if "the lotus petals fall before the wind and the peach blossoms are beautiful after the rain", which is an exaggeration.
Litchi pulp is mostly white and translucent, so it is absolutely correct to say that it is "snow in Bai Rubing". The others are yellow. From the botanical point of view, it is not the pulp, but the membrane outside the seed, which should be called aril. The real pulp is the film thrown away with the shell. The cell wall of litchi meat is very thin, so there is no residue left at the entrance. Sweet and slightly sour, suitable for raw food. Some are pure and sweet. Early maturing variety Suan. When litchi is dried or dried, the meat turns reddish brown and completely loses its white appearance.
Litchi is not resistant to storage, as Bai Juyi said, "The color changes in one day, the fragrance changes in two days, the taste changes in three days, and the color and fragrance are gone in four or five days." It is proved that the temperature can be kept at 65438 0℃ to 5℃ and can be stored for about 30 days. Further efforts should be made to extend the storage period to facilitate long-distance transportation, because litchi is not resistant to storage. In ancient times, Gong Yan wanted to eat litchi, so he had to send someone from the south to fly to Chang 'an or Luoyang, which brought people a lot of pain. Emperor Tang Ming did such a thing to spoil Yang Guifei. In the Tang Dynasty, Du Mu said: "Chang 'an looks back at the embroidered pile, and the top of the mountain opens a thousand times. "Riding the world of mortals princess smile, but it is litchi. It is a mockery of this matter.
Litchi is a seed, oblong, smooth and brown, and a few varieties are green. Excellent litchi, with undeveloped seeds and small shape, has lilacs, also called scorched pits. Now there are seedless lychees in Hainan Island, and the seeds are degraded.
The flowering period of litchi is from early February to early April, which varies with varieties. Guangdong has double-season litchi, which blooms twice a year. Litchi has four seasons and blooms four times a year. The flower shape is small, green and white or light yellow, not dazzling. Flowers are divided into male flowers and female flowers, and only a few varieties have complete flowers. Male and female flowers often do not bloom at the same time, so it is advisable to choose suitable varieties to plant together to increase pollination opportunities. A litchi inflorescence can have one or two thousand flowers, but the result is always less than a hundred, so there is a proverb "litchi has ten flowers and one son". Litchi is an important nectar source plant with many flowers and long flowering period.
Litchi originated in China and is a special product of China. There are wild litchi forests in Hainan Island and Lianjiang, which can prove that China is the place of origin. According to records, Wei Tuo, king of South Vietnam, paid tribute to Emperor Gaozu, which shows that there were lychees in Guangdong at that time. Its cultivation history has been more than 2000 years since then. There are many records of litchi in Sichuan in the Tang Dynasty. Since the publication of Cai Xiang's Litchi Spectrum (1059), litchi in Fujian has also received attention. Litchi is also produced in Guangxi and Yunnan, but few people talk about it.
There are thirteen books about litchi in ancient times, including Cai Xiang's, and there are eight left. There is only one record in Guangdong. In the early Qing Dynasty, there were records of Chen Dingpu in Sichuan, Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Vegetable Garden is not only the earliest work in the annals of china fruit, but also the earliest work in the world. The contents include the origin, ecology, function, processing, marketing and historical events of litchi, and 32 litchi varieties are recorded. Among them, "Chen Zi" is still widely planted. "Song Gong Litchi", now called "Song Jiaxiang", has an old tree, which still grows in the Songshi Ancestral Hall in Putian and still bears fruit every year. This thousand-year-old tree is more precious.
Litchi is a subtropical fruit tree with mild nature, and Chengdu and Fuzhou are the northern limits of its growth. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once built the Fuli Palace and transplanted litchi to Chang 'an, but they didn't have any seeds. Those who vent their anger on nature protection actually put them to death. During their stay in Song Huizong, Fujian people "put small plants in clay pots, sailed to Quexia and transplanted Xuanhetang". Huizong once wrote a poem boasting: "Densely moved to Fujian Mountain, and no new litchi Dan was planted." Actually, it was only once that year. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a poem "Xinli Pian", which said that several plants of Changshu Gujia survived. "The immortal was originally a seamount, and since then Jiangxiang has sprouted." But how many years have you lived? There is no following. Now that science is developed, it is not necessary to move litchi northward in the future.
China has a vast territory, and different regions have different specialties. It is feasible to develop local characteristics according to local conditions. Litchi production should be vigorously developed in areas rich in litchi. Su Shi has a poem saying: "In the four seasons of spring in Luofu Mountain, oranges and bayberry blossoms are new." Three hundred lychees a day, and I don't want to grow up to be a Lingnan person. "But how many people can there be for 300 yuan a day? The socialist modernized litchi production should be able to gradually meet the needs of the broad masses of the people.
Zhou Nan June Litchi Dan is the work of Jia Zuzhang, a famous popular science writer in China. In this paper, the shape, storage and transportation of litchi are described accurately, and the habits, origin and cultivation history of litchi are generally introduced, which is full of confidence in the future of litchi production in China. "Zhou Nan June Litchi Dan" was selected as the standard experimental textbook of ordinary senior high school curriculum, and was selected as the Chinese textbook of junior high school Chinese edition and compulsory five of Jiangsu Education Edition.
Author Jia Zuzhang is a famous popular science writer in China. 190 1~ 1988, from Haining, Zhejiang. As early as 1930s, he had monographs such as Botanical Atlas of China. In193/kloc-0, the Commercial Press published his Introduction to Birds, which is the earliest modern ornithology work in China. He created a large number of popular science works, including Birds and Literature before liberation, Animal Stories and Life Essays, and Biological Fragments after Liberation. Most of Jia Zuzhang's popular science works are written with colorful creatures, which are rich in scientific knowledge, historical knowledge and literary knowledge, and are quite ideological, scientific and artistic.