If you were to be born and bred in this country as an ethnic Bamar, it would be well nigh impossible not to know the Thazin flower. Moreover, if you happened to pick up along the way a fascination for orchids, with a dash of love for poetry, you'll surely have heard about classical poet U Toe's fabulous piece of verse on Thazin (Bulbopyllum auricomum) hailed as the king of all ပင်ဆင့် ပန်းပျံ
“epiphytic, air borne” flowers in Rama Yakan of 1784.
I was drawn to Thazin and its less glamorous companion the Gamon-in orchid and a flower with an exotic name, the Laung Pan, through a less romantic source—a tax report at the time of a Myanmar king in Myanmar era 1145 (corresponding to CE 1783). I found them in Dr. Yi Yi's article “Revenue Reports, Konbaung Period” in Myanmar language, that appeared in Vol. 48, Part-1 of Journal of the Burma Research Society of June 1966.
Thazin and the less well known Gamon-in orchid as well as an unfamiliar Laung Pan flower were the objects of tribute to the royalty as described in the Taungoo revenue report of Myanmar year 1145.
The excerpt described how a total of 27 shoulder loads of Thazin flowers were mandatory to be sent annually as tribute to various destinations of the Royal Court. A shoulder load consisted of two baskets carried with a shoulder pole and each basket contained 250 spikes of Thazin. The Gamon-in flower was sent to the Court by the Head of the Mye-fa-lan village in the same manner whereas the Laung Pan also had to be sent to the Royal Princess together with Gamon-in flowers.
I have no trouble imagining how Thazin and Gamon-in would be sent as tribute. They both are small plants and there is no way they could be sent as cut flowers; they would rather be sent as flower spikes with their pseudo-bulbs intact (commonly as we see nowadays for Thazin), packed perhaps in green leaves or moss. As for the Laung Pan, I've never heard of it. The Myanmar Dictionary described it simply as a kind of flower, I was told. Neither could I find anything about it in the Judson's Burmese-English dictionary.
According to my friend, a lawyer by profession and also a short-story writer, the poet U Toe of Rama Yakan fame had dismissed Laung Pan as a loser. Upon my request to find Laung Pan in Myanmar classical literature he promptly recited the relevant part of the following excerpt from U Toe:
According to him the last two lines from the excerpt effectively says, ... what's that lowly bloom Laung Pan to stand up against the royal Thazin! On my part, my little knowledge of Myanmar arts and literature wasn't helpful in finding out much more by myself. However, I managed to find Laung Pan in the famous Tawla of Shin Ottamagyaw:
Then, at a more earthly level, I was lucky to find Laung Pan identified as Rhododendron simsii in A Checklist of the Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, and Climbers of Myanmar, my stable reference. The Checklist gives Laung Pan as Rhododendron simsii (see page-218). Rhododendron in our language is the တောင်ဇလပ် flower, a name which most of us would be familiar, though we may never have seen one.
A website says this about the habitat of Rhododendron simsii:
In Burma it is found on both branches of the Irrawaddy above the confluence near Myitkyina, growing on cliffs and rocks along the mainstreams and their tributaries, even where the surrounding vegetation is Indo-Malayan hill jungle, and is often completely submerged during the rainy season.
Sadly though, unlike Beda (water hyacinth) who is a weakling singly but in numbers formidably capable of choking off the waterways downstream, no poet has sung for Laung Pan of the far north.
It was the naturalists who gave the most beautiful descriptions of Laung Pan.
Farrer writes of it as ‘smeared like an interminable bloodstain’ along both banks of the Ngaw Chang, a tributary of the eastern branch, and Kingdon Ward likened it in flower to ‘the glow from an active volcano at night’.
I found the following from Return to the Irrawaddy (1956) by Kingdon-Ward:
It is a small shrub with golden silky leaves and bright brick-red flowers, with a dash of carmine in them. It grows on exposed rocks, or in sand, in full sun, at, or just above, high-water mark, and is inclined to be social. I have seen it as low down as 800 feet, almost on the edge of the Myitkyina plain; and as common in both the main valleys above the confluence, but is not found on the sandy or muddy banks of the Irrawaddy south of the confluence. It is a tough plant, since it will stand annual submergence by mountain torrents during the rain season; … It flowers in March and April, before the rivers rise … In Burma a clump in good bloom amidst the river rocks is a fine sight visible from far off like the glow from an active volcano at night.
It gives one a shock to find a rhododendron growing amidst tropical surroundings. Rhododendrons, whatever else may be said about their adaptability, are not tropical plants—though they no doubt have, in true pioneering spirit, ventured down the valleys from the colder regions, and seem to have firmly established themselves on the edge of the plains.
Well, back to realities, our little Laung Pan's life at the Ayarwaddy headwaters has never been rosy. From time immemorial, hugging the rocky banks and outcrops, it must have gone through incessant cycles of submersion and rising back. The hard-earned reward, as we see today, is Laung Pan's harmonious existence within the ecosystem that embraces the tributaries of mother Ayarwaddy.
Now, I wonder if the headwaters of Ayarwaddy could stay pristine as it has always been? Are we seeing dark alien clouds gathering strength? Could we smell so much as a whiff of the ill winds?
Throughout the ages such has been the indomitable spirit of a creeping, frail-looking, peace-loving lowly Ayarwaddy dweller, it will be sad indeed if the harmony were to shatter and the little flower's hold on the rocks were to slip.
Does it have to give up to the whim and fancy of humans—mere mortals, only now?
Could we do something, or shall I rush to see the Laung Pan before it is too late?
Beside the hermitage, surely
Is the glen and vale
Where Zali loves to hide and play!
Let me be there mom
And I won't go astray.
