Some 6,700 hectares of dogwood (Cornus officinalis) are flowering in Foping County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, covering the whole mountain in a yellowish hue.

The plant is associated with China's Double Ninth Festival, which is a day for Chinese people to worship ancestors and pray for longevity. The festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. Wang Wei, a famous poet from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), wrote "I know my brothers would, with dogwood spray in hand, climb up mountain and miss me so far away" in his poem "On Double Ninth Day Thinking of my Brothers at Home."

Foping is a demonstration base for standardized planting of dogwood with an annual output of 1,000 tons of dried dogwood fruit, which is used in Chinese traditional medicine.

(Cover image via VCG, video provided by CGTN's Meng Qingsheng)

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