Japanese Camellia Meant Beheading😱 落椿（落ちツバキ）

Japanese follows English. 英語の後に日本語が続きます。

They are red and pink camellia Japonica or more commonly Japanese camellia flowers. I saw them in Yushima Seidō or Yushima Sacred Hall, a Confucian temple in Tokyo established in 1690 by Tsunayoshi Tokugawa, the fifth shōgun during the Edo period (1603 to 1868). Later on, Shōhei-zaka Gakumonjo, one of the then most important educational institutions, was also founded there.

Red camellia Japonica 赤い椿

Red Japanese camellia 赤いツバキ

Dead red flowers 散っちゃった

Red Japanese camellia tree 赤い椿の木

Pink camellia Japonica ピンクの椿

Pink Japanese camellia ピンクのツバキ

Pink one on the ground ピンクも散っちゃった

Pink Japanese camellia tree ピンク椿の木

Japanese camellia looks very similar to camellia sasanqua ("sasanqua"), and experts give us several ways to distinguish Japanese camellia from sasanquas, one of which is to see how a flower dies. A Japanese camellia flower falls off in its entirety while a sasanqua flower dies with petals falling off one by one. Since I can find no Japanese camellia in my neighborhood, this was my first time to confirm the difference first-hand👍

You see that Japanese camellia, not the petals but the entirety, on the ground, don't you? But samurai in Japan considered it ominous because of the associations of the flower falling off with beheading...

Japanese camellia or "tsubaki" in Japanese reminded me of "Tsubaki," a very famous shampoo brand of Shiseido, a leading cosmetics company, which is currently considering the sale of the brand to a private equity firm. Will this Tsubaki brand survive? Not only this cosmetic giant but many other businesses are currently struggling to survive COVID-19...

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湯島聖堂の椿です。赤もピンクもきれいです。近所に山茶花はたくさんありますが、椿はなく、やっと実際に見ることができました。

以前山茶花について書いたのですが、椿と山茶花の違いはその死に方にあるようです。椿は花ごとぽとっと落ちるのに対し、山茶花は花びらが落ちるとのこと。今回それを確認することができました👍

「椿」といえば、資生堂の「Tsubaki」ブランド、売却されるんですね。COVID-19 の影響がいかに大きいかを考えさせられる出来事です。

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