Botany for Poets

We talked quite a bit about various kinds of flowers in Thursday's class. Here are some links to sites that have nice pictures of flowers that turn up frequently in classical Japanese literature and art.

"Flower Room"
This is a good place to start a search for flower pictures. The trouble with it for our purposes is that you need to be able to read Japanese.

So, for more specific flower sites, here are some good ones from the "Flower Room":

Plum Blossoms

At the Mito Plum Blossom Festival, in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Cherry Blossoms

At Kôrakuen Garden in Tôkyô.
At Rikugien Garden in Tôkyô
At Heian Jingû Shrine in Kyôto.
In Gion, in Kyôto. (Atmospheric night pictures.)
At Ôsaka Castle in Ôsaka. (Rather imposing, this one.)

Irises

This is the index page of Flower Room's Irises section.

The kakitsubata of Tales of Ise, Episode 9.

Paulownia

Pictures of paulownia trees in bloom. The kiri of Kiritsubo in Tale of Genji. Scroll down for pictures of the trees.

Wisteria

At Ushijima. Spectacular! The fuji of Fujitsubo in Tale of Genji.

Moonflower

Also called gourdflower. Yûgao, in Japanese. These bloom at night with a wonderful fragrance. A summer flower.

Bush Clover

An autumn flower, bush clover is called hagi in Japanese.

Wow! Some flashy pictures of bush clover here.