Butterfly Spring Park (Hudie Quan in Chinese) is located at the foot of Yunong Peak,where is 25km away from Dali Ancient City in the north; the clean spring water flows out from rocks and converge into a transparent pond. The two ancient acacia trees by the side of the pond have lush branches and cover the pond. The flowers bloom and seem like butterflies,so people called it "Butterfly Tree". In early summer,the tree flowers bloom,and the light yellow flowers emit fragrance,attracting tens of thousands of butterflies fluttering,or form clusters "with feelers binding other' s, hanging upside down from the tree and the surface of spring water, forming a colored wonder."
Three Wonders
Spring
The spring soaks from the sand layers. Filtered by the thick sand layers, the spring water is limpid without any pollution. The Park of Butterfly Spring contains a Butterfly Museum. The Museum keeps many rare specimens of butterflies. There is also a Butterfly Pavilion and Butterfly Stele. Climb up the mountainside to enjoy the beautiful sights of Erhai Lake from the Sea Watching Pavilion.
Butterfly
Some of the butterflies are as big as a palm, and some are as small as a small coin. The butterflies are of all the color of the rainbow. There are more than one hundred kinds of butterflies can be identified. Many of them may even connect with each other by head and tail, and hang from the Silktree Albizzia to the water's surface. The sight is so magnificent and wonderful that people call it "the Party for Butterflies"
Tree
The dense crowns of two Silk tree Albizzia, which are about a hundred years old, cover the Butterfly Spring. All kinds of flowers bloom in the third and fourth month of every lunar year on Yunnong Peak. The big Silktree Albizzia gives off a faint fragrant scent. The scent attracts the butterflies, so thousands of them congregate around the Butterfly Spring.
Legends
Long, long ago, when the spring was still called the Pool without Bottom a father and his daughter lived by the pool. The daughter's name was Wen Gu. She was clever and beautiful just like a golden flower. She grew up, and fell in love with the hunter Xia Lang however Wen Gu was taken by a black-hearted landholder.
Xia Lang came back from hunting and went all to find her. The land holder's solders were sent to chase them and they were pursued relentlessly until they finally jumped into the Pool without Bottom.
At that very moment, there was lightening and loud thunder in the sky, a violent storm came. When the sun shone again after the storm, a pair of extremely beautiful butterflies flew out from the pool. They were followed by numerous small butterflies.
The date was April, 15th in the lunar calendar. From then on, on this day of every year, thousands of beautiful butterflies would gather here and tell the moving love story. This how the Party of Butterfly got its name.
Tips
The Butterfly Spring is quite near to Zhoucheng Village, Here too you can learn more of the Bai culture and visit some truly wonderful ancient buildings. Zhoucheng Village is a Bai village about 2 kilometers away from Butter Fly Spring. The people in this town are mostly farmers, and a major industry here is dying cloth. So you can buy souvenirs and find bargains on Bai cloth here. It is a small village of about 8,000 people, and almost all of the people are of the Bai ethnic group. The patterns and colors of the cloth that they die are unusual, interesting and beautiful. You’ll find both traditional and modern and surrealistic patterned cloth. The cloth can be made into clothing or used as tablecloth, scarves or curtains.