Halong in bloom

May 02, 2016 | 11:00

(0) user say

Eighty yellow apricot trees were brought from Uong Bi city to Halong city and displayed along with 50 cherry blossom trees as part of a beautiful floral festival, Hong Son reports.

The Cherry Blossom – Yellow Apricot Blossom Festival held in Yen Tu and Halong earlier this year made a lasting impression on tourists and local residents.

The annual event is co-organised by the People’s Committee of Halong City and Wanokai International Cultural Association of Japan. It was held to kick off the Halong – Quang Ninh Tourism Week 2016.

This was the fourth time the Cherry Blossom Festival has been hosted by Halong City. However, this year was made special with the unique flowers of Quang Ninh displayed alongside the symbolic flowers of Japan. Yen Tu’s mountain forests are famed for the yellow apricot blossom which flowers between March and April.

Pham Hong Ha, chairman of the People’s Committee of Halong City, said: “The cherry blossom festival has become an annual event of the city, with yearly improvement in quality and scale. It has contributed to strengthening the partnership and friendship between Quang Ninh and Japan. This is a chance for the organisers to introduce cherry blossoms, a cultural feature of Japan, as well as to promote the image the Bay.”

Japan’s cherry blossoms are already well known, but the yellow apricot blossom of Yen Tu is still to be discovered on the world stage. The yellow apricot blossoms symbolise patience and the will to overcome all difficulties.

Although it is similar to the southern yellow apricot blossom, the northern variety can be distinguished by several different properties due to the unique sub-tropical climate of the area.

The main differences include the lime yellow colour of the flower and a quintuble petal (instead of a sextuple petal).

Almost a thousand years ago, Yen Tu’s yellow apricot blossoms became popular as Tran Nhan Tong, then King of Vietnam (at the time named Dai Viet) abdicated and started his own meditation clan, Truc Lam Yen Tu, named after the name of the mountain area.

To conserve and develop this rare species, the local authority is conducting a project which will grow 1000 parental trees and 3000 display trees. Meanwhile, thousands of existing yellow apricot trees are being conserved.