Getting lost in the romantic Amaratoide flower field in Hanoi

Jenna Duong - Duy Khanh

Dec 23, 2021 / 08:43 PM

Once in a year in December, the season of Amaratoide arrived Hanoi, tingeing the city with their awesome little purple flowers.

Amaratoide or Globe Amaranth has its name of Cuc Bach Nhat in Vietnamese. The flowers have long been planted in Vietnam but they have only become popular several years ago.

The field of Amaratoide in Thach Cau Road, Long Bien District is the largest in Hanoi, featuring one hectare with 130.000 bushes of flowers.

The endless field with thousands of tiny gorgeous flowers attracts quite a few people, especially young girls who come to take photographs at the weekends.

According to Truong The Hung, owner of the flower field, Amaratoide used to have only two colors of red and white. Nowadays, thanks to hybrid breeding, the flower features many vivid colors such as magenta, purple, pink, among others.

It takes about four months from when the seed is planted until the flower blooms. Cuc Bach Nhat has a fairly long lifespan, about three months. The flowers are beautiful the most from mid-December to late February.

The ticket price to Hung’s Cuc Bach Nhat flower field is VND70,000 ($3) per person with no time limit.

The vast carpets of Amaratoide flower highlight the scenery of a morning in Hanoi winter. Their splendid beauty makes visitors feel like being lost in the fairyland.

Minh Phuong, a visitor to Cuc Bach Nhat flower field in Long Bien said that she used to take a lot of photos with various kinds of flowers in Hanoi, but this is the first time she snapped pictures with Amaratoide. “I decided to choose a simple white ao dai for my photo shooting today because these flowers themselves are already too gorgeous to create wonderful pictures,” she said.

The Amaratoide is a genus of ornamental bushes that inflorescence consists of round pinkish-purple flowers with tiny sharp petals

The flowers have no scent but are beautiful and would bring some health benefits for humans. It is said that the Amaratoid flower contains rich sources of vitamins, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and manganese that are usually used as herbal medicine.

Asian people believe that drinking tea made from dried Amaratoid flowers daily may help boost the immune system, reduce cholesterol as well as regulate blood sugar levels, and so on.