A fruit remembered
Li Minglong remembers gathering Jimniadion fruit to eat as a child. His memory brings together a plant, the act of picking, and the pleasure of a snack. Alongside the hunting, healing, and gathering for income that he describes elsewhere, this small pleasure gives childhood appetite a place in the story of forest life.
Gathering and eating make the connection personal. Jimniadion belongs to Li's childhood through a familiar activity, one he can still associate with a particular plant. The name carries that connection into the present telling.
A name beside an image
Jimniadion is glossed as 'thorn-bud fruit'; its recorded Chinese name is Xiumao Mei. The two names allow the plant to be approached across languages while retaining the sound attached to Li's memory. In the accompanying collage, red fruit appears beside leaves and a flower. Together, these details give the remembered snack a visible place within a living plant.
An ordinary pleasure
Li's memory invites attention to a modest form of familiarity: knowing a plant because its fruit once mattered to you. Childhood appetite becomes one way of attending to the forest and remembering its inhabitants. An everyday pleasure can carry a plant's name forward, preserving a connection long after the fruit has been eaten.