And since that hour the sky rains lovers ever;
All day they rock within that soft embrace.
At night the petals close; the stars up-quiver,
And sighing, seek their old accustomed place.
CHAPTER XV
THE CHRYSANTHEMUM
“See a kiri leaf fallen on the ground and know that autumn is with us” is a common saying in Japan. The leaves of the kiri (pawlonia) tree are so responsive to the spirit of autumn, which advances steadily till we see no garden flowers, no wild flowers, and have no longer the song of the insects, and one cannot fail to be impressed with some touch of sorrow; but the Japanese take sheer delight in the sadness of autumn, for soon the white frosts will be thick upon the ground and will turn the leaves of the maples on the mountain-side into a blaze of scarlet and gold, and then the kiku or chrysanthemum flowers will open.
The chrysanthemum has often been called the national flower of Japan, a rank more properly belonging to the cherry blossom; the mistake arises from the fact that the sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum is the Imperial emblem. The Japanese give a poetical reason for the choice of this especial flower as the Emperor’s crest: as in olden days the chrysanthemum used to be called Kukuri hana or “Binding Flower,” because as the blossoms tie or gather themselves together at the top, so the Mikado binds himself round the hearts and souls of his people; and it is a coincidence that the present Emperor’s birthday falls in the kiku month (November). For a thousand years the chrysanthemum was admired as a retired beauty by the garden fence and under a simple mode of culture; but it became the flower of the rich to a great extent under the Tokugawa feudal régime, and of late years the culture of kiku or chrysanthemum is the greatest luxury. It would probably surprise one to know how much Count Okuma and Count Sakai, the two best known chrysanthemum raisers in Japan, spend annually upon their plants; and many other people have found the reason of their poverty in kiku culture. Though one cannot but admire any advance in horticulture, carried to such an extent it seems to me merely a degeneration, and this “retired nobleman of flowers” (the Japanese call their kiku one of the sikunshi or four
CHRYSANTHEMUMS, KYOTO
floral gentlemen, the other floral gentlemen being the plum, bamboo, and ran or orchid) will grow quite as well, and attain as great perfection, in some little humble dwelling which has only a miniature garden, provided the necessary time and care, not money, is given to the plants.
The chrysanthemum has always been much honoured by the Imperial Court, and even in the ninth century garden parties were held in the Palace gardens to do honour to the blossoms, even as in the present day a yearly chrysanthemum party is held in the Imperial grounds. In ancient days the guests sat drinking wine and composing odes to the blossoms, and the courtiers adorned their hair with kiku flowers, at these pastoral feasts. To-day these modern displays of chrysanthemum plants partake of our own conventional flower shows, the plants being arranged somewhat formally in long open rustic sheds; but the variety of colour, every imaginable shade being produced, and the profusion of form, also the immense size of some of the plants, one alone a few years ago bearing 1272 blooms, make a brilliant scene, different from any other flower show in the world; for where else would the plants have such a setting as in these beautiful Asakasa grounds, where the gorgeous colour of the maples rivals that of the chrysanthemums.