Zhou Dunyi
Of the flowers in the Chinese garden, the most appreciated were the orchid, peony, and lotus ("Nelumbo nucifera"). During the Tang dynasty, the peony, the symbol of opulence and a flower with a delicate fragrance, was the most celebrated flower in the garden. The poet Zhou Dunyi wrote a famous elegy to the lotus, comparing it to a "junzi", a man who possessed integrity and balance. The orchid was the symbol of nobility, and of impossible love, as in the Chinese expression "a faraway orchid in a lonely valley." The lotus was admired for its purity, and its efforts to reach out of the water to flower in the air made it a symbol of the search for knowledge. The chrysanthemum was elegized the poet Tao Yuanming, who surrounded his hermit's hut with the flower, and wrote a famous verse: