The rare plant, known as jellyfish snow rabbit in China, growing on a rocky mountain plateau before ending up in a video blogger’s pot of noodles. Photo: Weibo
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https://scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3024403/rare-plant-noodles-leaves-bitter-taste-chinese-video-blogger People & Culture
Rare plant with noodles leaves bitter taste for Chinese video blogger
- Hunt for novelty takes wild food enthusiast up a mountain and into hot water with botanists
A Chinese video blogger has apologised for cooking a rare mountain plant with his instant noodles. Photo: Weibo
A Chinese video blogger with more than three million followers has apologised for boiling a rare – but unprotected – plant with his instant noodles.
The blogger, known only by his alias of Wild Food Brother, deleted the video – called “what’s the taste of boiling noodles with jellyfish snow lotus at an altitude of 4,500 metres” – several hours after it was uploaded last Wednesday and attracted criticism from botanists.
The plant was a member of the campanulales species, found mainly in the high mountains of Yunnan province, Tibet, Nepal and India. It is commonly known as snow rabbit, or jellyfish snow rabbit, in China, because of its appearance.
It is the second case in two months of a Chinese video producer destroying rare flora to attract attention in cyberspace.
Gu Yourong, a botanical teacher from the College of Life Sciences at Capital Normal University, lambasted the video on social media platform Weibo, saying, “Are you short of this particular food? Isn’t there a bottom line for hunting for novelty? Jellyfish snow rabbit has already been wrecked seriously and we can’t afford to pick it, even for samples.”
In an apology on Weibo, the blogger said he had been negligent in collecting the snow rabbit. “Internet users have reminded me that snow rabbit grows extraordinarily slowly and they are few and far between. Picking it will damage the environment,” he said.
“To protect the environment, and to avoid guiding people in the wrong way, I decided to delete the video.”
It is not clear where the video was shot but, in his apology letter, the blogger said that before filming he had checked with the owner of a store selling the region’s speciality goods and was told the plant was sold widely in the area, as well as online.
The blogger said the store owner had later served as his guide when he climbed a mountain in search of snow rabbits, adding there was no law banning people from picking the plant.
The species has not been included in China’s protected plant list, although it is endangered, according to Gu, who was quoted by news website Btime.com. Gu said China had released its first batch of wild protected plants in 1999 and the list for the second batch was still in the discussion stage.
Snow rabbit grows in adverse conditions on mountain plateaus where it flowers once every few years. “The balance between the biotic community and the environment is weak. Once destroyed, it is hard to restore the balance,” Gu said.
Last month, Yunnan police investigated a man for tearing up a plant, which looked like a lettuce, in front of a camera. Police said the plant, Rheum nobile, was a protected species. The result of the investigation has not yet been released.