The Peony. Summer flowers of Japan.

THE FLOWERS OF JAPAN AND THE ART OF FLORAL ARRANGEMENT.

by Josiah Conder

SUMMER FLOWERS. THE FLOWERS OF JAPAN.

PEONY

SUMMER’S hottest months bring the Peony and Lotus, flowers which, though hardly sufficiently democratic to rank among the most popular, yet play an important part in the art of the country.

Peonies, Yotsume, Honjo, Japan, Art, Painting
Peonies at Yotsume, Honjo.

The Peony is cultivated in long sheltered beds, forming generally the parterre to some adjoining chamber, from which its magnificent blossoms can be viewed. In the grounds of the wealthy it is subjected to scrupulous care and nursing, in order to produce flowers of enormous size and fullness, often so large and heavy as to need artificial support. It is regarded as the flower-queen of China, and is essentially the favourite of the upper classes in Japan.

The Peony was first, it is said, imported into this country in the eight century, and was chiefly cultivated in the provinces of Yamato and Yamashiro. Even now, the finest specimens in Tokio are brought from the neighbourhood of the old Capital, Nara.

The largest blossoms measure as much as nine inches across. The Peony is sometimes called the Flower-of-prosperity, and another fancy name by which it is know is the Plant-of-twenty-days, given because it is said to preserve its beauty and freshness for that period of time.

Of the large Tree-peony there are ninety distinct kinds, not including the small single kind of the same species, of which there are said to exist five hundred varieties.

Among colours, the red and white are most valued, purple and yellow specimens, though rare, being less prized. This exuberant flower, with its large curling petals, is a favourite subject for design and decoration.

Its companions in art are the Peacock, and the Shishi, a kind of conventional Lion, derived from Chinese designs; and in such company it forms the constant decoration of Temple and Palace walls.

Source: The floral art of Japan: being a second and revised edition of the flowers of Japan and the art of floral arrangement by Josiah Conder (1852-1920). Tokio: Kelly and Walsh, Ltd. 1899.

Who hung that cloth so fine
To bleach in the white sunshine?
Who owns that cloth so rare,
That only a maid should wear?
Nay, but we are di'eaming:
It is the moonlight streaming
Through the hedges and the trees;
The summer is not glowing,
'Tis winter that is blowing
Those snow-clouds on the breeze

July 20th. — Notes of a country walk. There will be now nothing but a diary of country walks, not through meadows, but over great plains of flowers changing week by week, now white with Hydrangea, now crimson with Lychnis, now purple with Iris. To-day the plains are white as with the bridal-veil of summer: the wreath is of Veronicas, small feathery Spiraeas, “Meadowsweet” making the air redolent with scent of home, and clumps of Hydrangea (H. paniculata), pure white in the hills — all this whiteness dashed with the delicate colours of Spirea purpurea and the graceful lilac spikes of Funkia ovata.

In the hedges one Orchid (Epipactis gigantea), with a spike of small orange flowers, varying between two and four feet in height; the dark purple star of Vincetoxicum Nikoense, and here and there clumps of dull crimson and white Canterbury Bells (Campanula punctata), together with quantities of bright blue Commelina communis, and occasionally the scarcer white variety. The blue Spider-wort is much used in dyeing; and as it gives off its colour easily, the fickle mind and transitory love are compared to it.

And then — how can I describe the effect of the first sight of that king among the flowers, the wonderful Lilium auratum, wild in its mountain home! As you walk, suddenly it arrests you, as it were a great white eye staring at you through the bushes. Another week there will be thousands of them, but to-day, it is this one, this first one, which makes you pause and wonder at Nature’s marvellous handiwork, the delicate stem bending but never breaking beneath its weight of flower, and, hanging over it, a fragrant haze of scent.

Source: The garden of Japan. A year’s diary of its flowers by Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852-1925). London, G. Allen 1896.

red, sun, Japan, Mon, Nisshōki, Hinomaru


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