Dalat, Vietnam's City of Flora:
Unique flowers, unique and introduced crops
by Gan Yung Chyan
SINGAPORE
SINGAPORE-- Dalat has too many beautiful flower species that have long
made this central Vietnamese hill resort the first of all Vietnamese tourist
towns to own the tourist's description "City of Flowers". It has also seen
many fruit plantations and factories burgeoning in recent years and these
sites are opened to agrotourists from the world.
In Dalat, besides the common cherry blossoms that can be found in Japan
and the US, there are unique orchids in Dalat that are found nowhere else
in other parts of Asia. There are about 10 species of terrestrial
orchids and 300 species of epiphyte orchids. Some orchid species are first
discovered here. They are named after Dalat and Langbian (another Vietnamese
town) as Dendrobium dalatense, Eria dalatensis, Oberonic dalatensi, Dendrobium
langbianense, Oberonia langbianesis and the Dendrobium insigne vaz Dalatensis,
known otherwise as pink spring 1988 orchid, et cetera.
Dendrobium sp.
Other unique flowers of Dalat include deer eyes, ipomoela and others
growing on deserted hillsides and uncultivated land around Dalat's villas.
Dalat's grown vegetables and fruits include cabbages, chayotes, potatoes,
cauliflower, carrots, lettuces, artichokes, peaches, the Trai Ham plums
(resemble Hanoi plums but different flavour and taste), egg persimmons, Dalat
strawberries (drinkable and edible), avocadoes, passionfruits, treacle-pineapples,
apples, durians, rambutans, tea and coffee.
The Dalat farmers grow artichokes for meals and medicine. The roots,
stems, flowers and leaves of artichokes are used in Dalat medicine. The
flower heads are used in Vietnamese soup stewed with meat. The leaves, stems,
roots and flowers are dried under the sun and concocted. The resultant refreshing
drink is diuretic and provides very good nourishment for humans' liver cells.
Artichoke tea is a daily beverage for many Vietnamese villagers. Medications
are not specified though.
The avocadoes of Dalat are well blended with sugar or condensed milk
to give them their common specific greasy taste that no other fruits in the
world can offer to any fruit connoisseur.
Egg persimmon (persimmon that looks like a hen's egg) that tastes
crispy and very sweet and other usual fresh persimmons are grown in Dran
(Duc Trong district of Dalat), in the lower section of Prenn Pass (Duc Trong
district) while avocadoes are abundantly grown in Di Linh and Bao Loc districts
of Dalat. In Duc Trong, passionfruits are cultivated for use in the "circulating
system" (Delat Tourism). Special treacle-pineapples are grown in Lam Ha
while durians and rambutans are harvested from the foot of Dalat's Bao Loc
Pass.
Di Linh and Bao Loc are the important plantation and processing districts
for Vietnam's tea and coffee.
Mulberries are recently exported from Dalat as mulberry wine. Besides,
the grape wine of Vietnam known as Dalat red wine or Vang Dalat forms a part
of Vietnam's agricultural exports.
Dalat welcomes all tourists, pomological and agricultural expertise
to visit this famed "City of Flowers". It inaugurates Vietnam Airlines'
direct, non-stop scheduled flights from Dalat to Singapore in 2004.
© MMIV - Volume 1 Number 1 Whole Number 1 Tropical Visions. Page posted 05/2004
