Tezos

Mu-lan

Creator

tz1e49f9DTcSsiNg3hxKnBUTod6FpJwFhzh3

Description

Magnolia × soulangeana Common name: Saucer Magnolia Magnolia fossils go back a hundred million years. This plant figured out how to bloom before bees even existed, which means it had to develop a whole different strategy for pollination, using beetles instead. The oldest trick in the botanical book, and it still works. In China, they called it mu-lan and only the Emperor was allowed to own one. Giving someone a root was considered an act of imperial favour, basically saying you matter enough to receive something that was supposed to belong to no one else. Buddhist monks planted white magnolias at temple entrances as symbols of purity, and in traditional Chinese medicine, the buds, specifically the closed buds, are used as a drug called hsin-i for headaches and fever. The bud is the medicine, not the bloom. Robert Lowell wrote about magnolias igniting the morning with their murderous five days of white. Five days. That's all you get. But a bud like this doesn't know that yet. It's still wrapped in its protective casing, covered in that fur coat, holding everything inside. The Aztecs called it Eloxochitl, flower with green husk. Maybe the husk is the actual story. © Corina Daniela Obertas Photography. All rights reserved. The purchase of this NFT grants the collector ownership of the token only. Full copyright, reproduction rights, and commercial usage rights remain exclusively with the artist. No part of this artwork may be reproduced, distributed, printed, licensed, or used for commercial purposes without prior written consent from the artist.

Traits

Tag

magnolia

Tag

bud