Chinese Wild Flowers

My hobby over the past two + years in China has been escaping the ugly cities and climbing mountains around the country.  One of my discoveries these years, though I knew this a little already, is the incredible diversity and gorgeousness of China's wildflowers.  Many of our favorite garden flowers -- lilacs, gardenias, numerous rhodys of different colors, lilies of the valley -- can be found in great profusion above the treeline in different parts of China.

"Consider the lilies of the field.  They
neither toil nor spin, yet in their beauty,
here today and tomorrow cast into the fire,
they surpass Solomon."  Jesus, right yet
again.  

Here are some of my favorite shots, the ones that I can find.  (Not counting all those gorgeous pictures from Mount Song in Henan -- no card in the camera! -- or the even more beautiful pictures of mustard fields in bloom, cherry blossoms against tiled roofs, and best of all, the lotus fields near my school, and other domesticated yet accidental beauties.) Also sorry to disappoint, you apologetic junkies and politics addicts who follow this blog, but stop and smell the wild roses (of which I found another kind on the border of Ningxia and Inner Mongolia this past weekend, the yellow one below.)

Flox, I think - though my co-worker claims it's a kind of lily.  This weekend, border
of Ningxia and Inner Mongolia,about 7000 feet above sea level.  

Is this what the yellow rose of Texas looks like? 

One of many kinds of rhodydendrums, on Green Mountain above Dali, Yunnan.  (This is the
mountain from which Kublai Khan mounted a successful attack on the city.  See, you can
be a flower-lover AND a warrior!)

Grass is a flower, and bamboo is a flowering grass.  

Lilacs  above the timberline in the dry north.  Others are white. The fragrance is amazing.