The chrysanthemum has been cultivated in China for more than two thousand years, says Dr. Bryan in the Japan Magazine, and there is evidence of its being cherished in Egypt a thousand years before it is mentioned in China. Whether it came from Egypt to China, or vice versa, it is impossible now to determine, but the Chinese like to regard it as a product of the Far East. Confucius mentions it in 500 B.C., under the name of liki. From China it was brought to Japan, where it has reached its highest development.
What the lotus was to Egypt, the fleur-de-lys to France, and the Tudor rose to England, the chrysanthemum is to Japan. The flower is single, yet many. It is a unity in variety, and a variety springing from one undivided centre. The Japanese call it "binding flower," for just as its petals bind themselves together on the surface, so the Emperor and the people are forever bound together in indissoluble union. It was probably chosen as the most natural and artistic emblem of the sun, but both this and the cherry blossom, like the Emperor and his people, are considered children of that luminary, whose orb resplendent stands for the country as a whole. Many a maiden of Japan is named after "the binding flower," and its use is very typical of Japanese art and life.
A Japanese Flower Man
At one chrysanthemum show we saw nine hundred blossoms on a single plant, and the flowers were arranged to form figures of warriors and ladies of long ago, from the fairy tales of Old Japan. At Dango-zaka, a place of professional gardens, an exhibition is held each year, for which visitors are charged two sen [10] a peep. Here we saw wonderful figures made of flowers—one of an elephant and his rider being thirty-six feet high. In the grottoes and rockeries of the garden were other life-like figures. It was a sort of "Madame Tussaud's" with the characters in flowers instead of wax. On revolving stages were rocks and mountains, horses and men in all sorts of attitudes, brilliant, curious and interesting—all made of flowers. One scene represented Commodore Perry's reception by the Shogun.
[ [10] A sen is three-fourths of a cent.
The Imperial Chrysanthemum Party has been in vogue at the Japanese Court since 1682. [11] Formerly, as the guests came before the Emperor, a vase of lovely blossoms, to which was attached a bag of frankincense and myrrh, was placed in front of His Majesty, and cups of saké with the petals floating in them were handed around. In the annals of China we read the explanation of this custom:
[ [11] For this description, also, I am largely indebted to the writings of Dr. Bryan.
There was once upon a time, as the story goes, a man who was warned of an impending calamity, which could be warded off, he was told, by attaching a bag of myrrh to his elbow and ascending a certain hill, where he was to drink saké with the petals of the chrysanthemum floating in it. The man did as was suggested, but on returning home he found all his domestic animals dead. When he informed his teacher that the plan had not worked, the former replied that the calamity was to have come upon his family, and that by acting upon the warning he had averted it, throwing the vengeance on the animals instead.