The flowers and gardens of Japan

by Florence Du Cane

THE KOBAI PLUM BLOSSOM

is indeed a harmony in greens; the maples had hardly lost their spring colouring when I started in the early dawn from Ashio to follow the course of the river which dashes down some hundred feet or more below the road with a thundering roar, and certainly the valley well deserves its celebrity. The Paulonia trees were then in all their beauty, and side by side with great masses of their purple flowers the wild fuji wreathed the trees with its delicate mauve blossoms, until at last I felt that the valley ought to be called the “purple valley.” A few tree pæonies were shedding their last petals in a tiny garden where we stopped to rest and sip the inevitable little cup of pale green tea, reminding one that summer had come and spring was gone, not to come again until the scorching summer months, the autumn storms, and winter snows had come and gone.

In early summer the higher moorlands afford a happy hunting-ground for the flower collector. Purple iris and white rue seem to fight their way among the moorland grasses, here and there a Turk’s-cap lily raises its scarlet head proudly, the purple bells of the Platycodon are just opening, and the wild white and pink campanula is already fading. The columbine, not the glorified hybrid Aquilegia of our English gardens, but the humble pale-coloured wild columbine with its long spurs and delicate fern-like foliage; yellow valerian, mauve and white funkias, pink spiræas, Solomon’s seal, endless varieties of orchises, and in favoured districts the pale pink Cypredium macranthum are among the summer wild flowers, scattered over the plain or nestling on the banks of the mountain streams. The flowering shrubs seemed endless; think how many shrubs introduced into Europe of late years are “japonica”! all these find their homes in one district or another. Besides all the varieties of plum, cherry, and peach, in spring the andromeda bushes are laden with their white bell-flowers, suggestive of a waxy lily of the valley, to be followed by their young leaves as bright as any flowers; every variety of crabs, white deutzias, spiræas, weigelias, the wild white syringa, which also seemed to differ from our garden variety, save only in its delicious odour; and a form of Rhincospernum jasminoides which I had not seen before, whose heavy scent filled the air at sundown. All these I can recall having come across during my summer rambles, and doubtless there are many more.

In the later summer months I wandered along the beautiful coast of the province of Izu, which again seemed to be a home of flowers. The tall spikes of Bocconia cordata reared their heads proudly wherever they had escaped the hand of the destroyer; apparently the plant is regarded by the country people as either poisonous or unlucky, as often a splendid clump of it, its height showing how thoroughly it appreciates the deep rich soil, will be here to-day and gone to-morrow, cut off and trampled down with evident intention. This coast seemed to be the home of the hydrangea and also of many different varieties of lilies. In May, on the lower ground of Hiezan, and especially in the neighbourhood of Lake Biwa, the pale pink Lilium Krameri may be found in tufts nestling under the shadow of some sheltering shrub, and scattered throughout the district the various forms of Lilium umbellatum, but the province of Izu seems to have soil more suited to the late summer lilies. By the middle of July the big buds of the Lilium auratum will be fighting their way among the rank growth along the roadside, and in a few days the air will be filled with their scent. Often I was attracted by their fragrance, perhaps all the more remarkable in a land which, alas! is not famed for sweet smells, and then far above one’s head, hanging defiantly out of reach, could be seen a single splendid bloom of this king among lilies. They seem to love the shelter and dampness of the wood, where the falling leaves each autumn make a fresh covering for their bulbs. Once I tried to see how deep in the earth the bulbs were buried, but I did not succeed in getting down low enough, and could only tell, from the mark on the stem of the lily which had been pulled, that about eight to ten inches seemed to be the usual depth of the bulb. Often the stems seemed to bear only one splendid bloom, but I was told that was only because the bulbs were young, and even in their wild state from six to eight perfect blooms on one head were not uncommon. There appeared to be every variety of auratum, and I noticed that the broad-leaved platyphyllum seemed even more sturdy than the rest, the foliage a deeper green, and the individual blossoms more perfect, the markings more distinct, and their scent, if such a thing were possible, even stronger and more overpowering than the more slender-growing Auratum virginale.

Then there were the Rubro Vittatum with their band of pink down each petal, but never in a purely wild state did I see it so deep in colour and truly defined as in the cultivated form which

LILIUM AURATUM