Cettria’s fancy, too,
Finds his cup of flowers,
Seeks his peaceful hiding-place,
In the plum’s sweet bowers.[1]
Though the snow-flakes hide
And thy blossoms kill,
He will sing, and I shall find
Fragrant incense still.
[1] Cettria, the nightingale.
Ginsekai is yet another orchard in the neighbourhood of Tokyo, its name signifying Silver World, and on a moonlit night in spring you would say that never was a place more aptly named, if you saw the forest of white blossoms rising out of the snow-clad landscape. There are some pretty verses on the sight, which run thus in English:—
How shall I find my ume tree?
The moon and the snow are white as she.
By the fragrance blown on the evening air
Shalt thou find her there.
It is true that the white varieties of plum blossom have nearly all a most delicious and delicate scent, but the red varieties are quite devoid of any fragrance. The plum is known as one of the Four Floral Gentlemen, the others being the pine, the bamboo, and the orchid. It has flourished in China from time immemorial, where it is known as the Head of the Hundred Flowers, because it is the first to bloom, and it was probably imported from that country through the medium of Korea into Japan. Even that learned botanist the late Dr. Keisuke Ito could not say where the plum-tree first flowered in Japan, nor can any one say with certainty whether ume is a Chinese or a Japanese word. Kakimoto no Hitomaro, who lived about the end of the seventh century, was probably the first to celebrate the plum blossom in his verse; and it may be said to have taken rank as a national flower when the Emperor Kwamaru (782-806) planted it before his palace when he moved his capital from Nara to Kyoto.
In those days the word flower meant the flower of the plum, just as the word mountain meant Hiei san, but it was dethroned from its pride of place when the Emperor Murakami planted the cherry-tree in its stead, and though the plum still stands first with the men of mind, the cherry-tree has ever since been the popular favourite. That the latter is most beautiful cannot be disputed; but for purity of outline, fragrance, and that touch of sadness, which the Japanese profess to find in it, the bloom of the plum is still unrivalled.
There are upwards of three hundred and fifty specimens of the plum, white, pale and bright pink, or even red in colour, single or double in form. Of these the more important are: Yatsu buse ume, which derives its name from bearing eight fruits, the blossoms having from two to eight stamens, the word signifying eight tassels; only two or three of these, however, ripen fully, and they are unfit for eating. The Bungo ume grows in the Bungo
