The plum blossom, mei hua (梅花), is the flower of the Chinese plum tree, Prunus mume, also called the Japanese apricot. It opens in the first months of the year, while winter frosts still bite, so Chinese tradition made it a sign of perseverance.
The first flower of the year
Because the plum blooms before other trees, it was welcomed as the herald of spring and a sign of renewal. That timing also makes it a popular symbol of Chinese New Year. The flowering plum became a favorite subject of painters in the Southern Song dynasty. Under Mongol rule in the Yuan dynasty, plum flowers in a bare winter landscape came to stand for purity and endurance in hard times.
Among the Four Gentlemen and the Three Friends of Winter
Plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo form the Four Gentlemen, each said to embody a virtue of the ideal Confucian scholar. Among them the plum stands for winter. With pine and bamboo, the plum is also one of the Three Friends of Winter, the plants that come through the harsh months. Our guide to bamboo meaning covers its evergreen companion.
Five petals, five blessings
A plum flower has five petals. In Chinese folk symbolism they point to the Five Blessings, wu fu (五福): long life, wealth, health, virtue and a peaceful death. The Republic of China (Taiwan) reads the flower in a civic way. Its Executive Yuan designated the plum blossom the national flower on July 21, 1964. The Office of the President explains that the triple grouping of stamens stands for Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and the five petals for the five branches of government.
Lin Bu, Wang Mian and the plum in art
The Northern Song poet Lin Bu (967 to 1028) lived as a hermit by West Lake in Hangzhou. He was known for having plum trees as his companions and cranes as his children, a claim that became a stock image in Chinese poems about life apart from the world. His best-known couplet, from "Small Plum in a Mountain Garden," pictures sparse shadows slanting over clear, shallow water and a hidden fragrance drifting in the dim moonlight.
In the Yuan dynasty Wang Mian (1287 to 1359) turned down posts under the Mongol government and made his living selling plum paintings. The Met says his flowering plums became the main model for plum painters of the Ming and Qing.
Plum blossoms with cranes and magpies
In decorative art the plum often shares a scene with birds. Paired with the crane, a token of long life, it makes a conventional wish for health and longevity, as in Yu Li's 1919 painting Cranes and Plum Blossoms at the Smithsonian. With a magpie the plum becomes a pun. The magpie, xique, shares its first syllable with xi, joy, and mei, plum, sounds like mei, eyebrows. A magpie on a plum branch reads xi shang mei shao (喜上眉梢), "joy up to the eyebrows." The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco holds a Qing jade hairpin carved with plum blossoms and a magpie.
Plum Blossoms at Buddha.store
More hairpins and scarves are in our accessories, including the Red Crane and Plum Blossom Pattern Shawl Scarf.
