Its journey is the stars and the sea

Last week, I saw the red thousand layers blossom for the first time.

This kind of plant is rare and rare in Chongqing. It is full of exotic beauty deeply conquered the audience's heart, every time I take my mother to see, she can not help but repeatedly praise: this flower is really beautiful! It's so beautiful!

In the morning in the community, many old women who buy vegetables, exercise and walk their grandchildren walk past it, and their reaction is exactly the same as that of my mother: amazing, novel, full of praise, but I don't know what kind of flower it is. After I told them, they asked very carefully which words and wrote down the name.

Bright red is the favorite color of the elderly.

Shrubs, taller than people, much branched

Red thousand layers alias bottle brush tree, or directly called "toilet brush", very vivid. The red bristles are actually its stamens. The ornate stamens and the sense of existence of the true petals are typical of the family Myrtle. The generic name Callistemon consists of the Greek root kallos + stemon stamens, which means that the red stamens are extremely beautiful.

Stamens numerous, filaments red, 2.5 cm long, much longer than petals

There are real petals, but they are small, as green as the calyx, furry and low-key. When the stamens are bare, you can see them more clearly. The style is also red.

5 petals, oval, green

It has no pedicel, and its stout calyx tube grows directly on the flower branches, forming dense spikes. When the florets bloomed, a red bottle brush came out. At first glance, some red brushes seem to be sprinkled with gold powder, and the sense of beauty escalates again. I thought it was a golden anther, but when I took a closer look, I found that it was the anther, but it turned yellow after pollination. The anthers before pollination, like filaments, are red.

Interestingly, there is a cluster of tender leaves at the top of the brush, which continues to grow as the flowers meet.

Spikes, growing at the top of branchlets

Anther dark red

Turn yellow after pollination

This kind of plant in the community is one of the cultivated varieties of Callistemon citrinus (also known as hard red thousand layer) and crimson red thousand layer (Scarlet Red).

I recognized it by the characteristics of the leaves, using the exclusion method. There are several introduced species in China (mainly in South China). Most of the leaves are slender and linear, while the leaves of this kind are wide and oblong. Second, its branches and leaves are hard. According to this feature, the same genus and species with soft and drooping branches, such as Callistemon viminalis, can be excluded.

The branches and leaves are hard, so they are also called hard branches and red layers.

Its flowers are beautiful at a glance, while its leaves are beautiful and winding. In the light of the night, I held up a thousand layers of beautiful red leaves, through the light, I was surprised to find that the leaves were covered with bright dots, like a vast sky dotted with stars. The edges of the leaves sparkled like a ring of broken diamonds. I was shocked and fascinated by this unexpected discovery.

At that moment, I was completely convinced of a sentence written by Mr. Han Shaogong: "A deciduous leaf is a mountain range, or a sandy plain."

Mr. Han is a wonderful man. He once "booked a free boat ticket or free air ticket to the corner of the barren slope in front of him, so he overlooked Huangshan Mountain on the stone slices in his hand, found Daxing'an Mountains in the weeds, and touched the Pacific Ocean in the Shijian Qingtan next to him."anywhere, squat down, sit down, lie down, stay long enough, with the help of gaze and a little imagination, you can throw yourself into another brilliant space." As I grew older, I became more and more able to enjoy what he described as "another piece of space".

Another piece of space

These bright dots are actually oil gland dots. After crushing the leaves, you can smell a strong fragrance. The word citrinus means "lemon fragrance". I rubbed a few leaves to smell it, feeling less like lemon, but closer to the smell of eucalyptus leaves. The old leaves are glabrous on both sides, but the young pinkish leaves are densely white pilose. It is said that each leaf can live for 3-6 years and has a long life.

The tender leaves are pink and furry

The hometown of the genus Melaleuca is in Australia, all belonging to 38 species, all native to Australia. Because of its popularity, the genus Artemisia has now cultivated numerous hybrids and horticultural varieties.

According to historical records, the original variety of Meihuahong Qianlian was one of the first to walk out of Australia and into the world. In 1789, the famous Sir Joseph Banks introduced it back to London, England, and then expanded rapidly in Europe.

Today, the genus Artemisia is common in California, Florida and New Zealand. In China, red thousand layer is also a very popular flowering tree species, which has been listed as one of the excellent new varieties of greening by Chongqing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming, Shenzhen and so on.

In addition to red thousand layers, there are also white thousand layers. They are all called Bottle brush, but to distinguish between the two genera, it is dangerous to look at the color of the flowers. Because there are white flowers in the genus Artemisia, and there are also red flowers in the genus. The key to the difference between the two genera is to look at a feature: whether stamens are free or fascicled. The stamens and petals of the genus Melaleuca form bundles, while the genus Melaleuca is usually separated into rings.

Wild white and red thousand layers, stamens free

Callistemon viminalis "Wilderness White"

Figure: australianplantsonline

Melaleuca bracteata, commonly known as "thousand layers of gold", is a kind of white willow, which is very common in Chongqing, but I have never seen them blossom.

Gold string of money willow, stamens in bundles

Zhang Yongmei. Photo taken in Xiamen Botanical Garden

The article and plant pictures (except for the origin) are all original by the author.

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