銀杏 + 藤 + 楓 + 桜

plants that make me want to go back to Japan:

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銀杏 ginkgo

Ginkgo biloba aka. ginkgo 銀杏 (silver apricot) aka. i-cho イチョウ....supposedly from Chinese ya1 jiao3 鴨脚 (duck foot) - presumably referring to e shape of e leaves?

http://ridge.icu.ac.jp/gen-ed/lower-plants-gifs/21a-ginkgo.JPG

noticed some uniquely-shaped leaves scattered on e deserted temple grounds of Asakusa Kannon-ji in Tokyo, but didn't bother much about them. until I kept coming across more & more of them & saw that they were fan-shaped with a notch in e middle, & looked up at e towering trees above. & realised that they were beautiful ginkgo trees, standing quietly as e first golden rays of e late spring sun reached out through e cold morning air.

forgetful cat didn't pick any of e fallen leaves as a souvenir =| probably too preoccupied playing with a Japanese counterpart (e super good-natured fat ginger & white temple cat) & too overwhelmed by e crowds of tourists that surged into e place from 9.00am onwards.

also walked down e ginkgo tree-lined Omotesando on my Meiji-jingu-Harajuku-Aoyama-Shibuya walk, but it wasn't autumn so I missed out on seeing this:



if anyone goes to Japan or North China in autumn, bring me back some ginkgo leaves? like how Ray gave me maple leaves from Canada as a souvenir =)

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藤 wisteria

Wisteria floribunda Macrobotrys (forgotten if this part of e scientific name of a plant should/should not be italicised along with e genus & specific epithet?) aka. toh aka. fuji, also part of some Japanese surnames e.g. Itoh, Katoh, Sato, Fujiwara, etc.

http://www.taleofgenji.org/images/imakumano_kannonji_wisteria.jpg
http://www.taleofgenji.org/images/fujii_wisteria.jpg

saw it on e grounds of a few of e temples & gardens that I visited in Tokyo & Nikko, usually draped from a wooden pergola. soft purple sprays of tiny flowers hanging languidly - a perfect counterpoint for e starkness & austerity of e white/black/dark brown/chalk green/stone grey temple structures with their rigid lines & perfectionist arcs, manicured shrubs & painstakingly raked gravel beds.

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楓 maple

Acer genus aka. kaede (from kaeru 'frog' & te 'hand', referring to e shape of e leaf) aka. momiji

one day would like to explore e Kameoka area northwest of Kyoto in autumn when e forests explode in a riot of reds, golds & yellows - hike up to Atago-san & down to e Hozu-kawa & maybe even find a way to explore e villages of Mizuo, Shikibigahara & Koshihata?

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桜 sakura

exams for last semester of honours year ended only in e first week of May 2002, which meant that hanami in Japan would long be over by e time I got there. but when e frozen cat ended up waiting at a bus stop one chilly morning along e shores of Chuzenji-ko for a connecting bus to Yumoto Onsen, noticed that e ground beneath some trees with beautiful silver bark was covered by drifts of tiny pale pink petals....& true enough, they were cherry blossom trees in flower =))

even higher up in e mountains at Yumoto Onsen, found plenty of cherry blossom trees by e shored of Yu-no-ko still in full flower at e start of e Yumoto-Senjogahara-Ryuzunotaki hike:



think it was because of e higher altitude & cooler weather that e cherry blossoms here were still in bloom, when in Tokyo e gardens were already all bursting with azaleas. so happy =))

http://www.nikko-jp.org/english/index.html eh how come this website didn't exist at e time I was planning my trip? had to rely on photostated pages of Lonely Planet's Hiking in Japan.

[ filed under: thewanderingstraycat + nature1 + japanese1 + kyoto_2005 + tokyo_2002 ]