Dong Fangshuo of Han Dynasty wrote in "Nerve": "There is a tree in the northeast, which is fifty feet high, eight feet long and four or five feet square, and its name is peach. His son is three feet and two inches in diameter, with a small and narrow core, and he can eat it for a long time. " Later, people celebrated their birthdays with fresh peaches, peaches made of flour or painted peaches, also known as "longevity peaches". However, painting peaches was not common before the Ming and Qing Dynasties!
Painting peaches, since the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, many painters have dabbled in it, such as Badashanren, Zhao, Zou Yigui, Ren Yi, Empress Dowager Cixi, Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian, Shi Lu, Cui Zhenshuo and so on, forming a unique visual culture of Shoutao.
China is the hometown of peaches;
"The trees are full of charming red, and the Dan color of all branches is burning with the melting of spring. In the Millennium, it will show the advantages of human nature. " Whenever winter goes and spring comes, peach blossoms bloom. In early spring, peach trees are in bud, and in March, charming peach blossoms bloom on the branches, like patches of Xia Hong, with picturesque fragrance.
Peach is a small deciduous tree of Prunus in Rosaceae. The trunk is grayish brown and the leaves are elliptic-lanceolate. Flowers are solitary, almost sessile, single and double, and the colors are pink, crimson, pure red, pure white, red and white, etc. There are many kinds of peaches, about 3,000 in the world and more than 300 in China.
"Guangqun Prose" said: "Peach is the wood of the west, the essence of five trees, and its branches are sparse." According to Compendium of Materia Medica, peach varieties include crimson peach, flying peach, Bi Tao (a kind of Chiba peach), human face peach (a kind of beauty peach), two-color peach, Sun Moon peach, Yuanyang peach, Rui Xiantao, Shouxing peach, giant walnut, October peach, nectarine and plum peach.
According to the use, there are mainly two categories: edible peaches and ornamental peaches. Wang Shimao, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, said: "There are the most kinds of peach blossoms, and there are two kinds of peach blossoms for players."