The Shanghai Garden in Winter: Wintersweet

Take a whiff – it’s the season for fragrant wintersweet (la mei, 蜡梅*), and somewhere in a Shanghai lane or garden, a tree is flowering. They appear in winter’s barren landscape right at that moment when it feels that all hope is lost and spring will never come, its yellow blossoms the promise of spring sunshine.

Song dynasty poets penned odes to the blossoms, and ancient Chinese maidens wore its flowers tucked in their hair. This time of year, branches of wintersweet fill homes with their delicious scent: a sure harbinger of spring.

A Mass of Colour in the Dead of Winter

Our favorite Old Shanghai nature writer, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, introduced the wintersweet to his readers in 1939 thus:

“On the subject of shrubs and trees for the garden in winter, it might be well to say more about the winter sweet (Chimonanthus fragrans), a plant which has been in full bloom during the past month or so, and is noted for the fragrance of its odour. Everyone in China must be familiar with this shrub, since branches of it, covered with yellow bloom though bare of leaves, are extensively used by Chinese and Westernerns alike for decorative purposes.