VietNamNet Bridge – The wild rose flower also has another lovely name – “climbing rose,” which was a typical feature of Da Lat. Local residents once thought that this kind of flower got lost in the city, but in fact, the wild flower still has been existing and beautifying the romantic city.


The witness of love stories

It was the coldest day on the highland, but Pham Van still insisted a friend of his to tramp the streets in Da Lat with motorbikes. The former literature student was very excited when seeing the small fences covered with wild flowers.

“This is really the flower’s soul of the cold land,” Van said, and recalled his memories when he first came to the flower city 20 years ago. Leaving Da Nang on a coach, Van had not thought too much about the destination – Da Lat, until a fellow shouted “Da Lat is near” and he felt the fragrance of flowers which came though the windows of the coach – soft and sweet.

This was for the first time Van got familiar with Da Lat wild rose. The fellow said that the fragrance came from nice wild roses on the hills. As the flowers are very rice, local residents like growing them on the fences to beautify their homes.

Attracted by the kind of rose, right after arriving in Da Lat, Van rushed to a library to find the books about the flower. Rosa multiflora is a kind of wild country flower which is very easy to grow. They have the average height of 2-3 meters and show nice fragrance.

This kind of flower is not as big as real rose, but the colors are wonderful and diversified.

The flowers prove to be the witness of many beautiful and sad love stories. Van related that he once declared his love to a girl – Lan Nhi – a beautiful girl at the fence of her wooden house located on the Cam Ly stream. However, they later got separated when Van had to return to the homeland, while the girl got married to another man.

Where are the roses?

When coming back to Da Lat, Van felt encouraged when realizing that the romantic roses disappeared from the city. Some big buildings arose in the city, but there were no wild roses.

The farmers in the Van Thanh rose village, said that the wild roses disappeared because of the strong development of the merchandise rose growing industry.

Ba, a famous farmer in growing roses, explained that high grade roses give very beautiful roses, but they are very difficult to be pleased. Therefore, researchers decided to graft high grade trees on the tree-trunk of another tree of the same family - Rosa multiflora – which are powerful and can be easily grown

As a result, wild roses have become rare in the city, because they have been collected to use as the materials to develop the high grade roses.

Nguyen Trong Hoang, former Director of the Lam Dong provincial Department for Culture and Tourism, said that Da Lat was a “city in the forest”, and that the forest was in the city. In other words, forests decide the vitality of the tourism city.

However, the increasingly high population, the rapid urbanization--all have led to the narrowing of the forest area. A lot of local wild flowers, which were once the typical features of the city, have gradually disappeared.

The department has drawn up the plan to restoring and upgrading the landscapes and environment of Da Lat City and Lam Dong, which focuses on reviving the wonderful flowers, growing them in many places to beautify the city and ensure that the city is colorful all year round with flowers.

Source: Tien phong