Written by: Wang Sufen
Posted on: June 05, 2018 | 
| 中文
The wild tulips near the lake
People in Xinjiang, China are familiar with a plant called “laowa garlic (literally meaning “crow garlic”). This wild tulip has a flower that is much more beautiful than its name. In early spring, when the snow starts to melt, laowa garlic sprouts out in the hill ridges and farmland. The sprouts soon bloom into bell-shaped flowers with light yellow petals, which dance in the wind. Children like to pick the bulbs of the plant for food during their spring outings. For many people in Xinjiang, laowa garlic grows in the spring of their childhood forever.
Mr. Liu Yinnan recorded in the Anecdotes of Urumqi that in late spring and early summer every year, all mountain and hill ridges are overspread with this wild vegetable of laowa garlic. The two varieties of single-leaf and double-leaf have bulbs that can be eaten either raw or cooked.
Some elderly people in Urumqi still remember clearly that in their teenage years, they often went to “Yipao Chenggong” (a local place) on the Red Hill ridges, to dig laowa garlic when going to the suburbs. Ma Fucheng and Ma Fuhua, two brothers born in Ningxiawan, Urumqi recalled that in the 1940s and 1950s, the highest hill terrain around Ningxiawan was Heijiashan Hill, which used to be called “Hill of the Hei Family” by the locals. The low hill was a paradise-like playground for children in that area. Whenever spring came, children from nearby would come to Heijiashan to dig laowa garlic. They peeled off the skin of the bulbs and enjoyed the sweet taste. Apart from the digging, some children also flew kites together on the hillside.
Zhong Yingxue, an old man in his eighties, grew up in Urumqi. He said, “Laowa garlic was just something that children dug for fun. It did not taste very good. But the digging process was full of childhood joy. Now, people do not dig laowa garlic any more in order to protect vegetation.”
Laowa garlic is a kind of wild tulip, and its scientific name is Tulipa altaica Pall. According to Xinjiang Herbs Manual, it is a perennial herb and an early spring plant under tulipa genus, liliaceae family. Its bulb can be used as herbal medicine, and should be harvested in spring, washed and boiled out before drying. It can clear away toxic matter from human bodies.
In early spring, such yellow flowers, some with a wisp of bright red, are distributed all over Tianshan Mountains and Altay Mountains. Especially by Sarim Lake and on Narat Grassland, laowa garlic grows everywhere. In Burtelik Meadow of Karasu Township, Zhaosu County, more than 100,000 mu (6666.67 ha.) of these wild tulips quietly bloom in spring, carpeting the land until the horizon. The flower season for European tulips is only about one week, whereas that of tulips in Zhaosu can last for 45 to 60 days. Every May, when the tulips blossom, Zhaosu holds the annual Tulip Tourism Festival.
China has fifteen wild tulip varieties, and of these Xinjiang has twelve. Altay tulip, the main variety of them, grows in northwestern Xinjiang (including Tacheng, Yumin, Emin and Tuoli), and has a flowering period of three to five months. It grows on sunny slopes and under bushes at the altitude of 1300-2600 meters, and is also found in Western Siberia and Central Asia. Besides, there are also varieties of Tianshan tulip, Ili tulip, Tacheng tulip and Junggar tulip, whose flowers are yellow, white, or yellow with wisps of bright red. Since they are all widely distributed at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountains, they are generally called Xinjiang tulip.
Last year, Zhong Yingxue and his son went to Bagang for fishing, and spotted blooming laowa garlic, at the waterside. This gave Yingxue a familiar feeling and his son told him, “This is Xinjiang’s Wild Tulip!” The old man was surprised, “I did not know that it had such a foreign-sounding name! I have called it laowa garlic for so long.”
All photographs by Wang Sufen.
Translated by Xu Donglin
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