More than?2 million flowering plants specially bred for
2008 Beijing Olympics were presented to city residents as China
marks a one-year countdown to the Games.
Forty-eight varieties of flowers featuring 132 colors, including
maidenhair, marigold and petunias, which usually come into flower
in May or October are displayed in full blossom in three areas:
-- on 7,000 square meters at "Shengfangyuan", a flower breeding
center in southern Beijing's Huaxiang County that has hundreds of
years of history in flower cultivation.
-- on 50,000 square meters outside the Olympic beach volleyball
venue in the eastern Chaoyang district.
-- along a three-kilometer road connecting the villages of
Huangtugang and Baipenyao, in Huaxiang County.
Li Xinmin, head of the Huaxiang committee of the Communist Party
of China, said about 60 million flowers were needed to decorate
parts of the city during next year's Olympic Games.
"However, few flower types are able to cope with Beijing's heat
and humidity," said Li, adding Huaxiang was charged with the task
to research and breed flowers for the Games in 2005.
Botanists had experimented with biological means to introduce
florescence to an oppressive summer, Li said.
Chrysanthemums, a symbol of dignity in Chinese culture, and
Chinese roses are on a list of Olympic flowers thanks to their
status as "flowers of the city", titles bestowed by Beijing
residents in 1986. Also on the list are peony and calla.
"The blossoms are durable," said Zhao Ying, head of the flower
breeding research team. "Olympic flowers can resist heat, strong
sunlight and drought."
Landscape engineers would introduce more flower types from other
parts of the country through crossbreeding to produce flowers that
could blossom in the heat of August, experts said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2007)