Chinese to English Art/Literary Tourism & Travel 甘肃省:莲花山花儿会

Starting from the 1st day of the sixth lunar month every year, the singers from the various areas start out for Lotus Flower Mountain in an endless stream. Holding up their umbrellas and waving their coloured fans, they walk along and sing at the same time. As soon as the people in the villages and hamlets along the way hear the sound of the singing, in accordance with the traditional "rules", they run out of the village, and, using a 马莲绳 to block the way, sing their interrogation:

The 马莲绳绳 is blocking it wide,
Wide as an iron-made tiger-trap pass,
If you're not good enough wriggle underneath.

The waylaid singers sing back their replies straight away. When the way-blockers feel satified, the 马莲绳 is finally released to let them pass through.

马莲绳 a cord yet a cord,
Frees up a road yet a road.

In this way the singers break through layer upon layer of "barriers", singing all the way until they reach Zuguchuan at the bottom of Lotus Flower Mountain, thereby opening the prelude to the Lotus Mountain Hua'er Festival.

马蔺 = a perennial herbaceous plant with a bluish purple flower whose leaves can be used to tie up things and to make paper, also called 马莲 and 马兰. (现代汉语词典)

Possibly Chinese small iris (Iris pallasii var. chinensis)