Lily Town
The lotuses blossom most luxuriantly from June to September each year and at this time, the Water Lily Town organizes a series of Lotus Festival activities. The first records of lotuses harvested in the town date back at least 19 years. The town’s ponds fan out over 410 hectares of land, constituting two thirds of the island’s lotus fields. The plants are harvested for their stems, roots, and cupules. The area’s cultivators frown on dehydrating, soaking, or bleaching the lotus root, techniques used to extend its one-week lifespan. Taiwan has been called the Kingdom of Butterflies, with more than 400 species of butterflies, and 40 of them can be found nowhere else in the world. There was a time during the 1960s when thousands of workers produced butterfly art and crafts. It is estimated that some 10 million butterflies were caught every year.
