Red Pieris (Japanese Andromeda) 赤い馬酔木（アセビ）

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

They're the flowers of Pieris japonica or more commonly known as Japanese andromeda or Japanese pieris. The red flowers surprised me because I thought Pieris had only white flowers. 

Its Japanese name is asebi, meaning "tree making horses drunk" because if a horse eats the plant, the horse looks drunk due to a toxin contained in the plant. But it's not only people that learn. Deer in the Nara park in Nara prefecture, western Japan, don't eat this plant, resulting in too many Japanese andromeda trees growing in the park. 

P.S. The blog is about things that make people smile but I haven't been able to smile for the last couple of weeks, and yesterday something that I'd been worried about started, i.e., Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I can't do anything, but I've been watching the situation, praying for the war to stop as soon as possible. 

Japanese andromeda アセビ

Pieris japonica 馬酔木

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馬酔木です。花の色は白だけだと思っていたのですが、ピンクや赤もあるようです。

馬酔木とは全然関係ないのですが、ここ2週間ほど危惧していたことが起きてしまいました。ロシアのウクライナ侵攻です。注視しています。そして祈ってます。

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