SUMMER FLOWERS
May is essentially the flower month in Japan, and a ramble through the
country cannot fail to be a never-ending joy and surprise to the flower
lover. It was nearly the middle of the flower month when, wearied of
the works of man, the glories and splendour of the endless round of
temples, museums, theatres, _no_ dances, and the usual sights which
all new-comers to the country must be introduced to, I started for
Matsushima, the land of the pine-clad islands. I had not expected to
find flowers there, but rather change of scene and peace. I felt that
for a time I must be “far from the madding crowd.”
It is a fairy scene which greets the eye in the early dawn after a long
and dusty journey, and I had to look and look again to make sure that
these tiny phantom islands were real and solid, not merely shadows
on the water, or even a moored junk, which presently would pass on
and vanish from the scene. As the sun rose higher the islands stood
out clear in the yellow morning light, then one realised why they are
called collectively Matsushima--Pine Islands,--for, however tiny it may
be, each isle has to support its burden of twisted, bent, and leaning
trees. How the seed has ever found the crannies and cracks between the
rocks in which to ripen, and eventually develop into those fantastic
trees, was a never-ending source of marvel and admiration to me. Think
of the cruel winter snows, and storms blowing in from the Pacific, that
these trees have had to withstand from their earliest infancy; small
wonder that some appear to have more spreading roots than branches.
Many an idle day was spent exploring this little host of islands, some
with their rosy carpet of azalea, perhaps not more than a few inches
high, creeping along close to the ground as if seeking protection from
the fierce winter gales. None the less beautiful for being dwarfed,
it seemed rather as though this fiery pink azalea had taken the place
of ground ivy, and what a beautiful _remplaçant_! On other islands
the wild wistaria had flung its long vine-like branches from tree to
tree, and suggested the lianes of a tropical forest; one scrambled
knee-deep in many of the hardier ferns to attain the summit of Ogidani,
in order to gaze across the whole lagoon and out to Kinkwosan; shrubs
of bird-cherry were in all their glory; and many others unknown to me
helped, in this month of flowers, to make them not only pine-clad but
flower-clad islands. It was with genuine regret that I left behind
this enchanted land, and with the cries of “_Sayonara_” and “Please
come again” ringing in my ears I turned my back on the Toyo Hotel and
its hospitable owner; but time was slipping by, and though it would
have been easy to dream away months here, I feared I might become a
mere loafer, so, after watching the sun set one evening late in May, I
returned once more to the railway, and the commonplace.
The train took me back to Itsunomiya through wilder country than I
had ever seen on any other railway line in Japan. Bandai San stood
glowering and threatening in the distance, and we sped past pine-clad
ridges and mountain streams, down to the lower land where glowing
rose-coloured azalea seemed to grow as hazel or hornbeam undergrowth in
England. One flashed past broad stretches of colour, growing fewer and
smaller where the ruthless hand of the cultivator had no doubt found
out that the fertile soil would grow other things more profitable, but
how far less beautiful, than wild crimson _satsuki_. I was bound for
Nikko on an “azalea pilgrimage,” for surely every traveller should not
fail to see the Nikko azaleas in all their glory, and later in the year
the maples, which vie with the cryptomerias for the palm of beauty.
The glorious avenue of cryptomerias which lined the old road to Nikko
has suffered from the hands of time and man; but long stretches of the
splendid old trees still remain, and form a fitting approach to the
little mountain village, celebrated throughout the length and breadth
of the world for its mortuary shrines, whose final peacefulness and
simplicity seem so striking after the ornate splendour and gorgeous
colouring of the outer gates and temples.
But it was azaleas, not temples, that I had come to see this time at
Nikko, and surely no one could be disappointed. Climbing up the hill,
every shade from delicate pink to clear red, pale transparent yellow,
and even rosy purple, seems to have run riot in a veritable feast of
colour. Little shrines nestle by the path, perhaps sheltering a small
stone image of Jizo the Helper, the travellers’ and the children’s
God; so we ask his kindly aid, and add our contribution to that of
hundreds of other travellers, and pause to gaze by his side at the
landscape--across the valley where the river threads its way, now a
harmless-looking stream, but in autumn to be swollen into a dangerous
roaring torrent, sweeping along, leaving death and destruction in its
wake. The azaleas here are not the _satsuki_ of Matsushima, but the
Azalea Beni Renge, leafless as yet, as the flowers seem so thick upon
their stems they leave no room for leaves. Their honeysuckle scent
filled the air, and hither and thither darted huge black butterflies,
looking strangely like humming-birds, only pausing for a second to suck
a drop of honey, and then on again to another, perhaps more freshly
opened flower. I noticed these same black butterflies always haunt red
or deep pink flowers. Is it vanity on their part--are they stopping to
think how admirably the colour contrasts with their own glossy black
wings? Then I remembered that the first time I ever saw a humming-bird
it was darting from one crimson hibiscus flower to another. Was that
also vanity? Or have crimson flowers sweeter or more delicately
flavoured honey than the rest?
As the mountain road winds higher and higher above Nikko, on its way
to Chuzenji, we left behind this variety of azalea, and came upon
another quite unknown to me. At first I thought the mountain-sides
were covered with peach-trees, whose blossoms lingered on in the
higher or bleaker regions, but it was not so, all was azalea; some
so tall that their bare stems stretched high among the other trees,
before they got enough light and air to wreathe their branches with
the peach-coloured blossoms. On these, lichen seemed to take the place
of leaves; the effect is indescribable to one who has not seen it: the
soft greenish-grey tufts clothe the stems, which might without their
furry covering look lean and bare; but all this beauty suggests weeks
of autumn rain and damp heat, more healthy for plant life than for man.
Often the path would be strewn with freshly fallen blossoms, and there
overhead one could see the pink flowers against the sky. The banks and
moorland were full of tender shoots and buds of shrubs and flowers,
which in July will be an endless source of surprise and delight to the
wild-flower hunter.
Leaving Nikko behind in all its gay clothing, I bent my steps towards
the Watanase valley, one of Japan’s most beautiful valleys. The early
summer
[Illustration: THE KOBAI PLUM BLOSSOM]
[Illustration: 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
[Illustration: _LILIUM AURATUM_]
is exported under that name. It was in the cottage gardens that I saw
the finest lilies, and many a giant bearing from twenty to thirty
unblemished blooms, at the top of a stem some six or seven feet high,
clad with equally unblemished foliage, was brought to me, as it soon
became known that the “foreigner” staying at Atami had come especially
to see their _yuri no hana_. Not that the Japanese seem ever especially
to admire them, and they are not included among their “seven beautiful
flowers of late summer.” Mr. Parsons gives an example of this fact:--
I was walking one day at Yoshida with a Japanese artist, a
remarkable man, who was engaged in making a series of steel
engravings, half landscape, half map, of the country round Fuji,
and called his attention to a splendid clump of belladonna lilies
growing near an old grey tomb; but he would not have them at all,
said they were foolish flowers, and the only reason he gave me
for not liking them was because they came up without any leaves.
When we got back to our tea-house he took my pen and paper and
showed me what were the seven beautiful flowers of late summer: the
convolvulus, the name of which in Japanese is “asago,” meaning the
same as our “morning glory”; wild chrysanthemum; yellow valerian;
the lespedeza, a kind of bush clover; _Platycodon grandiflorum_ and
purple blue campanula; _Eulalia japonica_, the tall grass which
covers so many of the hills; and _shion_, a rather insignificant
aster. I noticed that some versions of the seven flowers differed
from his; a large flowered mallow is often substituted for the
last he named. There are doubtless different schools which hold
strong views on the subject, but on the “morning glory” and some
others they are evidently agreed.
The tiger lilies were in bloom in the village gardens, but never in any
great number--a clump here and there, for they are seldom allowed to
bloom, it is for their bulbs they are cultivated; this is their “edible
lily,” and young bulbs of _Lilium tigrinum_ are among their most prized
vegetables. I had noticed a square bed of these lilies suggestive of an
asparagus bed, in a priest’s garden in Kyoto in May, and thought what a
wealth of colour they would provide later in the year; but next time I
saw the garden, early in June it may have been, the lilies had all been
executed--just their heads cut off,--and when I expressed amazement and
regret I was told that this was always done to strengthen the bulb.
The variety did not seem to be as fine as those grown under the name
of _Tigrinum Fortunii_ in England, and yet more robust and with larger
heads than our common tiger lily; probably the different soil and
damper climate would account for this.
The apricot-coloured _Lilium Batemanni_ seemed to know how to protect
their bulbs from the hand
[Illustration: LILIES ON THE ROCKS, ATAMI]
of the collector, for jutting out between the rocks, hanging perhaps
a hundred feet above the sea, these lilies grow, tantalising to those
who want to pick them, for these rocks are not easy to climb; but how
beautiful they are, their clear colour standing out against the grey
cliffs and the restless deep blue sea below.
The cultivation of lilies for exporting seems to have developed into
quite an important industry in Japan of late years; the district round
Kamakura and right away to Yumoto appeared to be the best soil for
their culture. I never saw any _Lilium longiflorum_ in their wild
state, but thousands, I should think millions, of bulbs of this lily
are exported annually, in all its different forms. For indoor growing
the variety known as _Harrisii_ seems still to be the favourite; though
_giganteum_ is a stronger form, and certainly is to be preferred for
the open ground. _Multiflorum_ is for the impatient grower, as it
flowers some three weeks earlier, though it is a more slender kind; and
there are many others. Even in Japan the dreaded disease among _Lilium
auratum_ seemed to be not unknown; apparently cultivation brings it in
its train, as in fields and gardens I noticed occasionally the fatal
yellow leaves, which means death to the bulb; and the other form of
disease known as “clubbing” may occur, even when the lilies are growing
in their natural state--the two stems grown into one, and the monster
head so closely packed with blossoms that none can develop to their
full size or beauty; on one head alone I counted over a hundred blooms,
but the effect was only that of a poor deformity.
Very beautiful were the large bushes of hydrangea, their branches
weighed down by their burdens of immense heads of bright blue flowers.
In some parts of England where there is iron in the soil, hydrangeas in
the open ground are blue, but what a poor washed-out blue compared to
the intensely deep colour of this Japanese variety, _Ajisia Aiyaku_,
meaning the blue hydrangea. Their great balls of blossom change from a
pale yellow green to bright blue, brighter almost than the sky above,
and as they fade, they turn to rosy purple, and back again to a dull
green, clinging with ungraceful tenacity to life, as though loth
or afraid to die, preferring to rot on their stem rather than drop
untimely--unlike the blossoms of spring, ever ready to depart life at
the call of nature. A more graceful form is _Hortensis Shirogaku_, with
its more loosely formed heads,
[Illustration: AN HYDRANGEA BUSH]
never forming a densely packed mass, each individual blossom showing,
with the outer petals of a much paler colour in contrast with the deep
blue centres. They are moisture-loving plants, as they seem to flourish
best on the very brink of the miniature mountain torrents. The garden
at Atami known as the Bai-en, celebrated for its early plum blossoms,
was gay with great bushes of these shrubs in July; they clothed the
banks of the roaring stream, till, as their heads grew heavier, the
lower branches were swept by the water.
In the early days of August the hedges and banks in the low country
were beginning to look parched and dusty, waiting for the autumn rains,
which never fail, and will bring new life and freshness to all the
herbage, but not new flowers--the season of wild flowers is nearly
gone; though the autumn will bring us the true “lily of the field,” the
scarlet _Nerine japonica_--a lily of the field, as it is only growing
along the edges of the rice patches on neglected banks or nestling
among the grey stone tombs of some forgotten graveyard, that you will
ever see these lilies. Never in any garden however ill kept, never in
any house, and never used as any form of decoration did I see this
lily; for are they not the “death flower,” the flower of ill omen,
or sometimes the “equinox flower,” also suggestive of a season full
of death and decay. _Nerine_ or _Lycoris japonica_, or the spider
lily--its name seems difficult to determine--made the land gay in the
fading year, gorgeous splashes of colour against the ripening rice, its
fringed heads rising leafless from the soil, sometimes in scattered
tufts, and sometimes great banks closely covered with their flaunting
heads. I felt Japan must indeed be rich in flower treasures for such a
one to be overlooked and uncared for. Perhaps in the South of England
it might find a home--a resting-place where it would be treasured,
not destroyed; at the foot of a grey stone wall a few tufts of this
brilliant lily would be a “thing of beauty,” though not “a joy for
ever.”
By November the flower year is over; the last chrysanthemum pots are
being hurried under their temporary shelters, away from the danger of
the early frost, which any night may turn the country into a blaze
of scarlet and gold. Not only the maples will help the year to die
in splendour, for so many other trees have as great a variety of
colour, though perhaps not quite so brilliant, and the dark leaves
of the tulip-trees will presently turn to a sheet of gold, the larch
will be shedding its pale yellow spines, while the Japanese oak,
_Shira Kashi_, with its ruddy colour will help to relieve the solemn
everlasting green of the pines and cryptomerias which clothe the hills.
The ripened rice is being quickly stored, and only the grasses and
foliage of herbaceous plants are left to give a note of colour to the
fields and higher moorland; the tall _Eulalia japonica_, waving in the
wind, clothes the golden hills, but will soon be beaten down by the
winter snows. So in a blaze of glory the year ends in this Land of
Flowers.