1982 In April, the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government established the Municipal Flower Selection Committee to mobilize the people of the whole city to select the Municipal Flower. More than 700,000 people participated in the selection. Guangzhou people in the northwest and northeast, compatriots in Hong Kong and Macao, and overseas Chinese in Canada all voted. The oldest voter is 9 1 year, and the youngest is 4 years old. There are 58 recommended candidate flowers, such as chrysanthemum, red cotton and white orchid, among which red cotton has a vote rate of 75.9%. After repeated research by the judges, it was unanimously agreed to recommend the cotton tree to the municipal government as the flower of Guangzhou. 1 June, the Guangzhou municipal government approved the cotton tree as the flower of Guangzhou.
Cotton is also called kapok and Panzhihua. According to Qu Dajun's Guangdong Xinyu, Guangzhou kapok was called the lighthouse tree when Zhao Tuo, king of South Vietnam in Qin and Han Dynasties, and there have been many poems praising kapok since ancient times. In the history of kapok, Yangcheng has eight ancient attractions of kapok: Yuewangtai (now Yuexiu Mountain), Nanhai Temple, Guangxiao Temple, Jinghui Temple, Wuxian Temple, Yuyan Academy, Yao Xi Zhangshi Kapok Road and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Kapok Village.
After the cotton tree was designated as the city flower, the Guangzhou Greening Committee held an arts and crafts exhibition and a literary evening with the theme of cotton tree, and published the Guangzhou city flower "Cotton Tree Album". There is a statue of the city flower in Hero Square, inscribed by Marshal Nie, which praises the noble virtues and sentiments of the cotton tree, which is upright, enterprising and inspiring.
1In August, 985, the Guangzhou Municipal Government approved the design of red cotton created by He Shide as the emblem of Guangzhou's city flower. Composition of flower emblem: A cotton tree in full bloom is displayed in the middle, with a five-pointed star on it, which means that Guangzhou under the leadership of China is reforming and opening up and marching towards socialism; The bottom set off the combination of ear of grain and red cotton, and pointed out that Guangzhou, the city of ear, is a famous historical and cultural city. Xu Shijie, secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, once wrote a poem praising: "Walking with your head held high in the forest, the sky is thin, and people are asked about the changes in temperature. The bonfire burns high in spring, but it stays in sleep. "
Kapok blooms from March to April every year, withers at the end of April and early May, and then grows leaves. Belongs to family: deciduous trees of kapok family, alias: Banzhi tree, Hero tree, Panzhihua. Origin: India, Indonesia, Philippines Morphological characteristics: the trunk is upright with obvious thorns; Rotate the lateral branches horizontally; Palmately compound leaves with long petioles; The flowers are big, orange or red; The fruit is a capsule, which will crack automatically when it matures. It is filled with cotton wool, which can be used as a filling material for pillows, quilts and so on. The appearance of kapok changes greatly: in spring, a tree is orange-red; In summer, green leaves are shaded; Autumn leaves are bleak; In winter, bare branches and cold trees show different customs in four seasons. The flowers are orange-red, and they bloom from March to April. They bloom first and then grow leaves, and the tree shape has masculine beauty. ?