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A 500-year-old poppy tree in full bloom after being struck by lightning…’0.005% rare gender’

adminJune 5, 2023

A pillar of fire descended from the sky in broad daylight메이저사이트. With a loud crack of thunder, an old pine tree that had been worshipped by residents as a sacred tree on a hill in Mojeong Village, Gunseo-myeon, Yeongam-gun, Jeollanam-do, cracked and broke in half. Hundreds of cicadas and other insects that had been living in the tree covered the ground with rainwater. A local resident, returning from a fishing trip to Unjiri (Jeolla-do for ‘goby’), took a short nap in the shade of the tree and was suddenly deafened. It was the summer of the 1930s.

“It’s not a legend, the villagers call him ‘Haejeon’ – ‘Hane’ means ‘grandfather’ in Jeolla-do, and ‘Haejeon’ is Taekhoe, and this grandfather’s grandmother’s (wife’s) hometown is ‘Haejeon Village’. Grandfather Haejeon, who was hard of hearing, lived well for decades afterwards and died in the 1970s, when I was in elementary school, and I often heard this story from my grandmother. My grandmother, who passed away in 1982 at the age of 98, saw the lightning strike that day. After being struck by lightning, she was so scared that she stopped using Ipomoea saccharifica, but the elders in the village said that it was a new tree that grew so big and bloomed so well. Just a week ago, the flowering was spectacular….”

On 11 May 2023, Kim Chang-oh (58), chairman of the Happy Village Promotion Committee, said this when he visited Mojeong Village, where a yew tree struck by lightning stood.

A cross-section of the half-destroyed trunk of the ‘Lightning Struck Ip Tree’ in Mojeong Village, Gunseo-myeon, Yeongam-gun, Jeollanam-do, on 11 May 2023. Reporter Kim Yang-jin

The area around Mojeong Village (marked in blue), which used to be a tidal flat, was transformed into a completely inland area 30 kilometres from the sea following the construction of dikes in 1540 and 1943 and the completion of the lower bank of the Yeongsan River in Mokpo in 1980.

10 metres high when struck by lightning

Although more than half of the trees had been destroyed by the heavy rain five days earlier, the white flowers were still in abundance and magnificent. The wind was blowing, and it was raining rainwater. Peeking beneath the tree’s canopy (the outstretched branches and leaves) revealed a 90-year-old scar from a lightning strike that had split, cracked, and charred the bark from top to bottom. A new branch that had grown from a height of about two metres 40 years ago had now grown to the size of an adult thigh. As if to fill in the empty halves, they grew to the west, where there were no branches, to balance the tree’s shape. Even after being struck by lightning, it was a giant tree with a height of 10 metres and a circumference of more than a chest high.

The villagers had asked the county government 10 years ago to designate the tree as a protected tree so that it could be professionally managed. The official in charge measured it with a tape measure and said, “The circumference is not enough to become a protected tree,” so the residents called in a tree doctor and other experts to check its health. “There’s no need to worry, it’s healthy,” they were told.

“Only the outer 10 cm or so of the tree is alive, and the inner part, which is used for water pipes, is dead tissue that accumulates and becomes the ‘heartwood’ that we use for wood. This heartwood rots quickly, and it’s quite natural for a dead tree to have a hollow core. The hollow is called a ‘pupil’, which in itself is a sacred and dignified appearance of an old tree. However, people do not understand tree physiology and want to fill the hollow with their own bodies, so they perform ‘surgical operations’ to scrape out the hollow and fill it, which only promotes the growth of mould, and the old tree loses its dignity. In the case of the Ipop tree in Mojeong Village, it was a very good thing that they didn’t do anything to it.” Park Jung-ki, a representative activist of People Finding Old Trees, explains.

Ipom trees are characterised by their abundant flowers that bloom in late spring. But it seems that different cultures have come up with different names for the same flower. The Latin name is Chionanthus, meaning ‘snow flower’, and the English name is White Fringe tree, meaning ‘white tassel’. In Korean, the tree is called Ipop because it resembles a warm and full bowl of rice. It is said that when the white flowers are full, they resemble a large bowl of rice.

Kim Chang-oh, chairman of the Happy Village Promotion Committee, and his wife, Kim In-soon, chairwoman of the Women’s Association, stand next to the ‘Ipop Tree Struck by Lightning’ in Mojeong Village, Yeongam. Reporter Kim Yang-jin

Flowers are in full bloom at the ‘Thunderbolt Ip Tree’ in Mojeong Village, Gunseo-myeon, Yeongam-gun, South Jeolla Province, on May 4, 2023. Contributed by Kim Chang-oh

Blocked by a dyke and undergoing embankment construction

The tree revives the village’s special and long history. Dating back about 500 years, the tree was a fulcrum for tying up ferryboats. In 1540, during the reign of King Joongjong of the Joseon Dynasty, a dike was built to connect Yangjang Village and Dongho Village, the upper village of Mojeong Village, to increase the rice harvest, transforming the area into a vast field known as the Sibri Plain. Beneath the yew trees was a tidal flat where the waters of the West Sea flowed in and out. At high tide, the men would untie the ropes on the floating ferryboats and row out to fish. ‘Ganomite’ means ‘under the tidal paddy field’, which is why the place name under the eastern side of the pine tree is ‘under the tidal paddy field’. The vacant land east of the village is Alchumsaesan (lower sandy beach) and the vacant land west of the village is Ulchumsaesan (upper sandy beach). The goby caught by ‘Haejeonhane’ is also a saltwater fish.

It was a time when rice was money, gold, and greed. In 1943, Hyun Jun-ho, a “pro-Japanese” and “Honam’s richest man,” built a 1.2-kilometre dike from Yangjang Village to the next village, Seongjae Village. It was at this time that the Hakpa Farm (completed in 1961, 8.92 million square metres) was built, along with the “museums of the Seoho River” that Ha Chun-hwa wished for a good harvest in verse 2 of her song “Yeongam Arirang”. Later, in 1980, the construction of the lower bank of the Yeongsan River in Mokpo was completed, and the sea was pushed out 30 kilometres.

The richness of Mojeong Village, which has been passed down from generation to generation, is reflected in the town. To the east of the lightning-struck yew hill, in front of the village reservoir (Hongryeonji), where ‘hongryeons’ bloom in splendour every summer, is Wonpungjeong (願豊亭), which means ‘wish for a good harvest’. The name of the village comes from the old name of Wenfeng Town, Mojing. Mojeong (茅亭) means ‘frugal pavilion’, derived from the phrase ‘hatlessness’ in Hanbijia’s ‘Five Elements’. Standing at Wonpungjeong, I had an unobstructed view of Wolchusan’s Cheonhwangbong and Jijubong. One at Wolchulsan at night,