Orchid Register

高濂Jul 2024

3.6

Word count: 7.7K words
Chapters: 7

Summary

Traditional Chinese culture has a long intellectual history, marked by a high degree of originality, inventiveness, and literary quality. Its early forms of thought are highly distinctive: religious theology, medical classics, ancient military treatises, Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and Hundred Schools thought, feng shui and metaphysics, the Twenty-Four Histories, customs and local gazetteers—all are profound and extensive. This "Classic Chinese Studies Essence and Culture Original Texts" series preserves the appearance of the original books and focuses on conserving and transmitting traditional Chinese thought and culture. By reading the literary essence left by ancient sages, readers cultivate character and quietly come to appreciate the classics of Chinese studies.

Editor's review

Lan Pu is a monograph on orchids by Gao Lian of the Ming dynasty, one of the more specialized works in the traditional literature of flowering plants. Gao Lian is known for Zun Sheng Ba Jian (Eight Discourses on the Art of Living); his writing balances practical use with refined appreciation. This monograph deals extensively with the identification of orchid varieties, cultivation and care, and evaluation and connoisseurship, and preserves much of the ancient literati's delight and fastidiousness in growing orchids. This edition belongs to the "Classic Chinese Studies Essence and Culture Original Texts" series and focuses on preserving the original appearance, suiting readers who wish to encounter traditional horticultural literature in its original form. Its value lies not in offering modern orchid-growing techniques but in showing how the ancients treated orchids as friends and expressed feeling through them, linking the study of plants with self-cultivation. Readers may focus on three levels: the genre's structure, the evaluation of famous varieties, and everyday cultivation experience—reading it both as horticultural source material and as a work on literati life. For readers interested in traditional natural history, flower culture, or Ming dynasty aesthetics of living, this is a compact and flavorful anthology.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in traditional flower monographs and ancient horticulture
Those who enjoy Ming literati aesthetics of living and refined appreciation
Readers who wish to learn the ancients' orchid-growing experience from primary sources
Those engaged in popularizing traditional culture or teaching horticultural culture

Not a good fit for

Orchid-growing beginners seeking a modern cultivation manual
Readers who only read vernacular explanations and avoid original texts
General readers with little interest in ancient botanical monographs

Reading tips

Read through once to understand the structure, then return to details on varieties and cultivation.
Keep a botanical reference work at hand to check ancient orchid names.
Copy out evaluative passages to appreciate the ancients' aesthetic standards for orchids.
Read alongside Gao Lian's other works to understand his aesthetics of living as a whole.

版权信息
兰谱
叙兰容质第一
品兰高下第二
天下养爱第三
坚性封植第四
灌溉得宜第五

FAQ

Is this book suitable for someone with no orchid-growing experience?

It can be read, but do not treat it as a modern orchid-growing guide. It discusses ancient cultivation experience and connoisseurship, and its terminology and variety names differ from today's. Those without experience can read it first as a cultural work to understand the ancients' view of orchids; for actual cultivation, modern horticultural resources are still needed.

What does "original appearance" mean?

It means the series focuses on preserving the original form of ancient books, retaining the original text and arrangement as much as possible rather than undertaking large-scale vernacular rewriting or modern processing. Readers can engage more directly with the traditional text but need some patience with classical Chinese.

What should I focus on when reading Lan Pu?

Three levels: first, the structure of the monograph—how the ancients classified and recorded orchids; second, specific cultivation and care experience, reflecting ancient horticultural skill; third, evaluative and connoisseurial passages, showing how orchids entered literati aesthetic and spiritual life.

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About the author

高濂 Author

Gao Lian was a Chinese man of letters about whose life very little is publicly known; neither his birthplace, nor his dates of birth and death, nor his official career can be confirmed, and his name has come down to later generations chiefly through his surviving writings. Eight of his works are held in this collection, spanning medicine, health preservation, prose and miscellaneous writings, historical reading, and Eastern philosophy. His representative work is Zun Sheng Ba Jian (Eight Discourses on the Art of Living), together with a plain-language illustrated edition of it, as well as Ping Shi, Ping Hua Pu, Ping Hua San Shuo, Lan Pu, and Four Seasons of Health Preservation. His writing centers on daily regimen, seasonal care, the appreciation of flowers and plants, and the refined tastes of the literati, combining practical guidance with aesthetic sensibility in a clear and meticulous style that weaves health preservation into everyday life. Overall, Gao Lian's works reflect the traditional literati concern with caring for body and mind and with the quality of living, and have had a certain influence on later health-preservation culture and writings on flower arrangement.