Flowers have feelings too In the Xiaozong reign (1163-1189) of the Southern Song, the literatus Zhang Gongfu not only planted an orchard full of plum trees and built his house among them, he also listed dozens of things plum flowers liked or disliked, or which they found honorable or shameful, delectable or loathsome.
北宋文人鍾情梅花，以之明志，而南宋文人與梅花的情誼，則可說是到了「花人合一」的化境。一樹梅花一放翁南宋孝宗時的文人張功甫，不但栽種梅林，築屋其間，還把梅花的喜好、榮寵、憎妒、屈辱，一一列出幾十條來。