CNY Decorative Plants : Pussy Willow 银柳

银柳 ( pronounced yin liu in Mandarin ) is Pussy Willow, a shrub of  Salix family.  Salix is a big family of around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, distributed all over northern hemisphere.  Most Salix are known as willow, some narrow-leaved shrubs are called osier.

The Salix used for decoration during CNY could be S. gracilistyla, a shrub native to Japan, Korea and China.   However, any Salix with furry flower buds along a long straight branch is qualify as decorative cutting during the spring festival.  Thus the list could extend to S. caprea, S. discolor,  S. cinerea etc

The furry flower buds are actually male flowers.  The buds appear early spring, before the leaves emerge, after the long cold winter.

Pussy willow ( yin liu ) in Mandarin sounds like “money” ( yin liang ), thus having the pussy willow around symbolizes abundant luck and prosperity.

CNY Decorative Plants : Ribbon Dracaena 万年青

The ‘Lucky Bamboo’ is actually not a bamboo.  It is Dracaena sanderiana, a small shrub of the family Ruscaceae from the tropical region of west Africa.

The Chinese called it 观音竹(Buddha’s bamboo)，万年青 (Evergreen).  Others called it Ribbon Dracaena, Belgian Evergreen … 

Its name after Henry Frederick Conrad Sander (1847-1920), a German-English gardener.  Dracaena means "female dragon" in ancient Greek.

The Ribbon Dracaena is germinated from short cuttings, arranged into multiple tiers; or trained into spiral-shaped ; or shaped to resemble a pineapple.   

Sagittaria sagittifolia - Arrowhead 芽菇

Sagittaria sagittifolia ( also called arrowhead due to the shape of its leaves, ) is a flowering plant in the family Alismataceae, the water-plantain family. The Sagittaria genus consists of about 20 species worldwide. It is native to wetlands throughout the temperate regions of Europe and Asia.

The name derived from Latin word sagitta, means an arrow.

It is a herbaceous perennial plant, growing in water from 10 – 50 cm deep. It forms 3 types of leaves : submerged ( ribbon-like ), floating leaves ( transitional in shape ), and above water ( arrow-head-shaped ). The arrowhead-shaped leaves’ blade 15 – 25 cm long and 10 – 22 cm broad, on a long triangular petiole holding the leaf up to 45 cm above water level. The flowers are monoecious, 2 – 2.5 cm broad, with 3 small sepals and 3 white petals, and numerous purple stamens. Fruits are achenes.

It requires a moist or wet loamy soil in a sunny position. Due to its C3 photosynthesis pathway, it cannot grow in the shade. It prefers shallow, still or slowly flowing water up to 30 – 60 cm deep. The plants are fairly cold tolerant, surviving temperatures down to at least -10°c, though the top growth is damaged once temperatures fall below zero. Average yield maybe 12 – 15 t/ha. Reproduction by floating seeds or vegetatively.

Sagittaria is a general nuisance in the crops’ irrigation systems, drains and waterways of more than 50 countries.

The tuber is edible. It is know as cígū (慈菇, literally mean "benevolent mushroom") or yagū ( 芽菇 ).

http://ongrizinal-recipe.blogspot.com/2010/01/arrowhead_07.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittaria_sagittifolia

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Sagittaria+sagittifolia

http://ecocrop.fao.org/ecocrop/srv/en/cropView?id=9441

http://www.issg.org/database/species/ecology.asp?si=858&fr=1&sts=