A flower that only Yunnan people know, the name is water-based poplar, and it is just right to come to Lugu Lake this season

Number of days: 2 days
Time: June
Average cost: 1000 yuan
With whom: a person
Updated: 2020.05.31

I forgot where I saw this sentence: "If you like quiet, you can come to Lugu Lake, face the water, and watch the white clouds flow." You can also take a ride on the pig trough boat of the local Mosuo people and get close to the white flowers on the water. What

a romantic picture. What is more beautiful than this text is that you really walk into the scenery, with snow-capped mountains, clear water and pure white flowers floating on the water, together forming a fairy-like scene. Anyone who comes to Lugu Lake will linger here.

Many people know about Lugu Lake because of marriage. This lake, which spans two provinces, half in Ninglang County, Lijiang, Yunnan, and half in Yanyuan County, Liangshan, Sichuan, is a place where men's hormones rise. Marriage is the custom of the Mosuo people, an ethnic minority in Yunnan and Sichuan, and the Mosuo people still maintain the tradition of women in charge of the family, except for a few who recruit sons-in-law because they want to increase the working population of the family, there is basically no marriage system, and the children born are also born to their mother's family.

In the early summer of more than ten years ago, I first stepped into this mysterious and beautiful place, when there was only a lakeside street of more than 100 meters next to Lugu Lake. The lake is dotted with Mosuo houses and a few small inns and bars. Despite the high season, there are surprisingly few tourists.

The hostess of the inn took me and her son on a narrow pig trough boat to the center of Lugu Lake to take pictures. I was curious about the small white flowers that looked like water lilies, with almost transparent petals wrapped around goose-yellow stamens, and the long rhizomes swayed with the flowers, allowing it to rise and fall on its own. The hostess told me that the locals in Yunnan call it sea cauliflower or seaweed flower, and the Mosuo people call it Cape, and they have to thank it three times a day. It can be used as a seasonal dish in summer, cold salad, stir-fry or soup, all of which are light and tender in the mouth.

She also joked that in the past, seaweed flowers were not eaten by people in some areas, but were used to feed pigs. Instead, he proudly explained that don't look at this kind of white flower small and inconspicuous, in fact, it is very picky about the environment, and can only live in clear shallow water, if the water quality is too turbid, it will affect its growth. Although seaweed flowers are not the only ones in Lugu Lake, the clean Lugu Lake is the common home of our Mosuo people and seaweed flowers.

The hostess was very talkative, but the little boy was too quiet, he leaned next to the pig trough boat without saying a word, occasionally fiddling with the flowers in the water with his hands. The sun was just right, and the golden halo scattered from the sky to the entire lake, and the little boy and the seaweed flower inadvertently became the protagonists of the painting. Thinking about it many years later, I still feel that I am almost drunk.

In recent years, with the development of Yunnan's tourism industry, it has also driven some changes in Lugu Lake, there are more businessmen, and the marriage customs of the Mosuo people have also become a little more formal, and more and more eyes are focused on the beautiful scenery of Lugu Lake. When I came to Lugu Lake again, the seaweed flower had entered the scenic restaurant from the ornamental plants in the water, and in order to attract tourists, it was also given an interesting name: water-based poplar.

Due to its extreme sensitivity to water pollution, the seaweed flowers in Lugu Lake are also threatened by water pollution and overfishing. Fortunately, seaweed flowers have now been included in our country's "List of Rare and Endangered Protected Plants", and the scenic spots are basically planted artificially, and the seaweed flowers in Lugu Lake will also be collected and managed regularly.

The flowering period of seaweed flowers in Lugu Lake is very long, starting in late May and lasting until early October every year. The vegetation is lush in May~June, the flowers bloom best in July~August, and the sky is high and crisp in September~October, which is suitable for taking a boat tour to enjoy the flowers. Although Lugu Lake may not be what it originally looked like, such a once beautiful place, if you can appreciate it from a different angle, its quiet atmosphere is still the same.