Osmanthus Heterophyllus (Holly Olive) at Former Yasuda Garden 旧安田庭園の柊（ヒイラギ）

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

These are the flowers of osmanthus heterophyllus or more commonly known as holly olive at former Yasuda Garden in Tokyo. I saw holly olive trees with spiny bright green leaves at the garden of the Parliamentary Museum two weeks ago, but they had no flowers. 

The Yasuda Garden is believed to have been built from 1688 to 1703 by Munesuke Honjo, an uncle of the fifth Tokugawa Shogun Tsunayoshi, then bought in 1900 by Zenjiro Yasuda or the founder of the Yasuda zaibatsu, one of the four major business conglomerates of Imperial Japan owned and managed by the Yasuda clan. All the Japanese conglomerates were dissolved at the end of World War II, but they have survived through to the present day nominally or otherwise. The three megabanks in Japan, i.e., MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Mizuho Bank, have their roots in zaibatsu conglomerates, that is, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo, and Yasuda, respectively.

Osmanthus heterophyllus 柊

From above 上から

Holly olive or false holly ヒイラギ

(If you wish to post your comment but don't have a Google account, select "anonymous" from the drop down menu titled "comment as"!)

旧安田庭園の柊です。柊といえば2週間ほど前に憲政記念館の庭で見たのですが、花は付いていませんでした。

安田といえば財閥。忘れていたので調べたら、みずほグループが安田だったんですね。銀行業界は戦後のみならず21世紀初めにも再編があり、もう前身が何だったか覚えている人の方が少ないのではないでしょうか。時代の流れを感じさせる庭園でした。

(Google アカウントを持ってない方は、コメント記入後に「Google アカウント」をクリックし、「匿名」か「名前/URL」を選択してからご記入ください！)