Almanac of Flowers in Kyoto

Flowers are the stuff of poetry and art, nature’s gift to earth and us earthlings. Since time immemorial, we earthlings have admired them and used them not only to beautify our environment but also as symbols of our thoughts and emotions.
In classical Japanese literature, the word hana, literally “flower,” is practically synonymous with sakura, “cherry blossom,” and albeit Japan does not have an official national flower, for many people the sakura is a de facto national flower for this country. When it is used in literature or other mediums of expression in Japan, such as the kabuki drama, movies, and anime, the cherry blossom is a poignant metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life. The way they burst into bloom when the warmth of spring arrives, making a dazzling appearance, yet are so frail, fluttering away after just a few days of glory, reminds us of the transience of life.
This year’s calendar takes up some of the scenes of flowers that may be enjoyed at temples or shrines in Kyoto. On the January-February page is the approach to the front entrance gate of the temple Honen’in, located at the foot of the Higashiyama hills that hug the eastern side of the city. The approach to Honen’in is like a mountain trail, with many tall camellia bushes growing among the other trees along the path. It is a snowy winter’s day, and the sight of the bright red blooms is beautiful in this otherwise drab season. A notable characteristic of the camellia is that the bloom will suddenly drop from its stem, a stark reminder of the short-lived beauty of many things in life. The scene of the fallen blooms has a beauty all in itself, as well, and the Japanese have a literary term for it, “fallen camellias.”
January of course is the month that begins the New Year, and there is a Japanese literary term meaning “new spring” for this time of the year. New Year’s traditionally represents the beginning of the new annual cycle of seasons, a concept that makes real sense when one counts the days and months according to the old lunar calendar, as the ancients in Japan and some other parts of the world did. The people of old were very clever, also, in creating kanji characters. For example, the kanji for “camellia” is written with the symbol for “tree” on the left and the character for “spring” on the right. The camellia is the spring flower, the flower of the New Year’s season, when no other flowers are blooming in nature.
This year we are a bit ahead of ourselves for the March-April calendar page, which features a scene of blue flag irises around a pond at Heian Shrine. Irises in Japan, of which there are many varieties, mostly bloom around early summer and the rainy season, giving a special elegance to this season. They are associated with the Boy’s Festival of May 5, now known as the “Children’s Day” national holiday, which traditionally is known as the seasonal festival of the iris. The Japanese word for irises in general is “shoubu,” pronounced the same as the word meaning “match to compete for dominance.” The old tradition for the Boy’s Festival was for families with small boys to put iris leaves, which have the appearance of sword blades, in the bathwater and hang some around the eaves of the home on the day before the festival, wishing for the boy to grow up strong. The Heian Shrine garden scene in the picture is easy to recognize for its characteristic stepping stones that form the “Giant Dragon Bridge” connecting to the island in the pond. The pond garden here is a popular site in Kyoto for viewing irises.
On the May-June page, the scene is of the hydrangeas at Fujinomori Shrine, famous for its flowers throughout the year, and especially for its hydrangeas that bloom around the time of the rainy season, in June. It is generally felt that the hydrangea is most beautiful in the rain, its large serrated leaves and ball-like clusters of flowers shining with the moisture. The flowers start out a greenish white in color, and slowly turn into deeper colors ranging from dark pink to pastel purple. The sight is like a water-color palette. The kanji used to write the Japanese name for this flower, ajisai, normally cannot be pronounced “ajisai,” and so it is a test of memorization to know that they are to be read this way. The kanji literally mean “purple sunny flower.” Alternative names for the hydrangea in Japanese are words meaning “seven transformations,” because of the beautiful change in the flowers’ colors, and “hand ball,” referring to the elegant toy balls made of dyed thread which children of the nobility played with long ago.   
For July-August, it is the wonderful lotuses at the time-honored temple called Mimurotoji, in the south of Kyoto city. Mimurotoji is known as the Flower Temple because of its spectacular displays of flowers and foliage throughout the year on its vast grounds. Situated on a mountain above the Uji River, the temple’s impressive garden includes the hillside and land extending down to the river. Buddhist temples often have lotus ponds, for the lotus is a Buddhist symbol. We see this in the fact that statues of the Buddha usually depict him seated in meditation or standing enlightened upon a lotus flower. The symbolism lies in that the plant grows in murky water, and when the time comes for the flowers to appear, at dawn the tight buds on the tall stems which have risen from the water’s surface suddenly open up with remarkable beauty, untouched by the impurity. By the time the sun is high, the flowers shed their iridescent pink petals, leaving behind the unique seed pod which in time drops its seeds into the murky water. Mimurotoji’s famous lotuses are unique in that they grow in pots, approximately two hundred and fifty pots. When the flowers are at their height around July, the entire courtyard fronting the temple’s main hall appears to be a vast field of these impressive flowers.
For September-October, we are taken to Kibune Shrine, located in the Kibune area deep in the mountains in the northeast corner of Kyoto, to see the charming Japanese anemones for which this area is famous, called Kibune-giku in Japanese. Another name for the Japanese anemone is shumei-giku, written with kanji characters meaning “autumn bright chrysanthemum.” Either name gives the flower to be a kind of chrysanthemum, but actually, anemones belong to the buttercup family. There are single, semi-double, and fully double forms, and their colors range from frosty white through soft pinks to carmine. Apparently, the English name anemone comes from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind. Anemones are thus sometimes called windflowers.
The original species was introduced into Japan from China centuries ago, and although this plant is popularly known worldwide as the Japanese anemone, it was from its native land, China, that it first found its way to Europe.
The November-December page features an impres-
sionistic scene of sasanquas at Rengeji temple. The distinctive shape of the stone lantern seen toward the top left lets us know that the place is Rengeji, a relatively small temple off the beaten track, in the Omuro area of Kyoto. The Rengeji-style stone lantern is characterized by its unusually steeply inclined hexagonal cap. It is late in the year, and sasanquas ranging from bright white to crimson are blooming profusely at one side of the approach to the temple buildings, their fallen petals scattered about the moss and walkway. The Japanese name for this category of camellia called sasanqua is sazanka, written with kanji characters meaning “mountain tea plant flowers.” Sasanquas of many varieties and colors grow wild in the mountain areas in western Japan, and put on their flowers in the fall, when other flowers are scarce.
We have come full cycle and from here, the flower almanac once again returns to the flowers that faithfully bloom in the early months of the year, as seen on the cover and first main page of this calendar.
Please enjoy these scenes of flowers in Kyoto.
Gretchen Mittwer