Linden Arrowwood (Viburnum Dilatatum) ガマズミ（莢蒾）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Linden arrowwood (Viburnum dilatatum) is native to Eastern Asia and can be found across Japan. It produces white flowers in clusters from April to June and also clusters of red drupes in autumn. The drupes are too sour to eat in the beginning but become sweeter towards late autumn. 

The linden arrowwood means that "love is stronger than death" in Japanese floriography. 

2025/9/23

2025/10/5

Mealycup Sage & Maile Pilau Hornworm サルビア・ファリナセア & ホシホウジャク

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Mealycup sages (Salvia farinacea) are native to North America and Mexico. They're perennial there but annual in Japan. Hovering over them are burnt-spot hummingbird hawkmoths (Macroglossum pyrrhosticta). Surprisingly to me, they're not bees or wasps but moths. I've seen them many times, but they move from one flower to another so swiftly that I had no chance to photograph them. Today, however, while I was taking photos of the sages, hawkmoths came to the flowers, luckily giving me the chance to take pictures of them. Their larvae's host plants are skunkvine. 

2025/10/3

2025/10/3

2025/10/3

Lespedeza (Bush Clovers) 萩（ハギ）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

Bush clovers are native to East Asia and can be found across Japan, flowering from July to September. The term "bush clover" is a kigo, i.e., a seasonal word or phrase associated with a particular season used in traditional forms of Japanese poetry, for autumn, but Lespedeza actually flowers from early summer to autumn.  

Bush clovers are known to produce pink flowers but they also have white flowers (Lespedeza buergeri) and some (Lespedeza  japonica bailey cv. versicolor) produce pink and white flowers on the same tree.  

2025/10/4

2025/10/4

2021/6/4 Japanese bush clovers at Kan'-ei-ji temple in Ueno 上野寛永寺の萩

2021/6/4 Lespedeza at Kan'-ei-ji temple in Ueno 上野寛永寺の萩

2020/9/27 Mukojima Hykkaen Garden, 向島百花園

White Early Amethyst (Callicarpa Japonica F. Albibacca) コシロシキブ（小白式部）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

This is white early amethyst (Callicarpa japonica f. albibacca). I've seen early amethyst, which is purple, many times and photographed them through the year from buds to flowers and to fruits but saw white fruits for the first time. 

Early amethyst is native to Asia and can be found across Japan. It produces flowers in clusters from July to August and tiny drupes also in clusters from September to November. Its Japanese name is "koshiro shikibu," meaning white "komurasaki," which translates to "small East Asian beautyberry" because early amethyst and East Asian beautyberry resemble each other but the former is smaller than the latter.  

The Japanese names of early amethyst and East Asian beautyberry 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.

2025/10/3