The mottle pattern of Queens' Tears Bamboo is characterized by its teardrop speckles. So there is a legend that the speckles were formed by the tears of two queens in ancient time. There was a story that King Xun's two queens were mourning over the death of the king. Their tears dropped onto the nearby bamboo trees and so all the bamboo trees were stained with their tears and eventually the trees were mottled with teardrop patterns. Gao Ping, a Tang poet, wrote a poem about this story:

"King Xun went for an official inspection but never came back,

The two queens were grieving by the waterside.

You want to know how much they cried?

Up till now all the bamboo trees are still mottled. "