Red, White, and Yellow Spider Lily (Lycoris) ヒガンバナ（曼珠沙華/彼岸花）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Spider lilies are native to China but can be found across Japan. They flower in September and therefore are called "Autumnal equinox flower" in Japanese. Spider lilies are known generally as red flowers (Lycoris radiata) but they produce white (Lycoris albiflora) and yellow (Lycoris traubii) flowers. A white spider lily is not a sibling of a red one, but a cross-breed of a red and a yellow spider lilies. It's interesting that a child of red and yellow flowers is white.

A yellow spider lily is called "Shouki zuisen" in Japanese, translating to "Zhong Kui lily" as its petals look like the beard of Zhong Kui, a demon hunter and Chinese deity who fights ghosts. 

Despite their beauty, red spider lilies are associated with death in Japan for an unfair but understandable reason. Although cremation is the most popular now, burial used to be common in Japan and therefore red spider lilies were planted to keep moles and other animals away from bodies because the plant's bulbs are poisonous. Spider lilies are called "higan bana," meaning "flowers during the higan period." "Higan" is a Buddhist holiday, i.e., three days before and after both the Spring equinox and Autumnal equinox. 

2025/9/26

2025/9/26

2025/9/26

2025/9/26

Early Amethyst (Callicarpa Dichotoma) コムラサキ（小紫）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Early amethyst (Callicarpa dichotoma) is native to Asia and can be found across Japan. It produces tiny pale pink flowers in clusters from July to August and tiny drupes also in clusters from September to November. The fruits are green at first and then turn purple. (Scroll down!!) Its Japanese name is "komurasaki," which translates to "small East Asian beautyberry" because the two resemble each other but the former (i.e., early amethyst) is smaller than the latter.  

Their Japanese names both contain "muraski," which means purple and Murasaki Shikibu or Lady Purple. Lady Purple is a Japanese novelist, poet and court lady at the Imperial court in the Heian period (794 - 118), known as the author of The Tale of Genji, which is often said to be the world's oldest long novel.

2025/6/20

2025/6/20

Auaxa Sulphurea キエダシャク（黄枝尺）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

The summer is finally over this year and signs of autumn are here in Tokyo, one of which is the return of butterflies and moths. This is Auaxa sulphurea, one type of geometer moth. If it hadn't moved, I would have thought it was a leaf. 

Auaxa sulphurea is seen across Japan and also Taiwan and can be easily identified by the horizontal brown red line. The caterpillars feed on plants usually in the rose family, known to mimic a rose twig.  

2025/9/23

Meadowhawks (Sympetrum) 赤とんぼ

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

I've taken photos of blue dragonflies, such as blue-tailed forest hawks and white-tailed skimmers, several times but red ones for the first time (though I saw them many times in my childhood). I believe this is a meadowhawks (Sympetrum) but there are many types of meadowhawks and I don't know which one. 

In Japan, there is a very famous song for children titled "Red dragonfly." I don't listen to children's songs almost at all but this red dragonfly made me feel a bit nostalgic. 

2025/9/22

2025/9/22

Star Magnolia (Magnolia Stellata) シデコブシ（四手辛夷）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

The star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) is native to Japan, flowering in early spring. Its flowers resemble white magnolia (Yulan magnolia) very much, but there are several differences. Star magnolia flowers are star-shaped and a little smaller than white magnolia. The way of flowering is also different, i.e., star magnolia flowers fully open while white magnolias only half open even when in full bloom. 

On 13 September 2025, I found something interesting. A star magnolia tree had several fruits beside another tree with many buds, one of which was half open (4th photo). This is, however, not unusual (at least in Japan). Magnolias are known to flower outside the flowering season due to unusual weather or other reason. This magnolia tree may have produced buds and flowers in September because of the extremely hot summer this year.

2024/3/19

Cabbage White Butterfly モンシロチョウ（紋白蝶）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

I thought it was a common grass yellow butterfly at first but it's not so yellow and its spots, which should be black, are paler or nearly pale gray, which made me conclude it's a male cabbage white butterfly.  

Although its English name and Japanese name (which translates to "spot white butterfly") both include the term "white," the male cabbage white butterflies are yellowish. Also, according to Kubota Corporation's website (in Japanese only), they can tell the male from the female by the wing color because they can see ultraviolet light. The female's wing, which reflects ultraviolet light, looks brighter than the male's wing, which absorbs the light. 

2025/9/7