Pink and White Marbled Sasanqua Camellia 源平咲きの山茶花

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Sasanqua camellias (Camellia sasanqua) are native to Japan and can be found across Japan. The plant produces white, pink, and red flowers from October to December, earlier than Japanese camellia (Camellia japonica), which is one of the differences between the two camellias.  

These two camellias resemble each other and experts provide several ways to distinguish them. One is the size of trees and another the timing of flowering, but the most interesting difference is how they fall or die. Sasanqua flowers die with petals falling off one by one while when Japanese camellia flowers die, the flower heads fall off in their entirety and this way of dying was associated with beheaded human heads in the Edo (samurai) period. Naturally, despite its beauty, the Japanese camellia was unpopular among samurai. If you're interested in such "beheaded" camellias, read this post!

If you're interested in other marble colored flowers, read the following posts!

• Pink and white marble colored Japanese apricot
• Red and white marble colored flowering peach 
• Pink and white variegated bush clover

2025/11/1

2023/12/25

Japanese Chestnut (Castanea Crenata) 日本グリ（和栗）

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The Japanese chestnut (Castanea crenata) is native to Japan and Korea and can be found across Japan. Chestnuts are used for many dishes in Japan, not only sweets but also mixed rice or kuri gohan. 

There are the following types of chestnuts according to Adachi Otoemon, a confectionery shop in Kyoto: 

• Japanese chestnut (Castanea crenata)
• Western chestnut (Castanea sativa)
• Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima)
• American chestnut (Castanea dentata)

I know all of them are sweet so I want to taste them all to decide which is the sweetest😋!

2025/10/19

2025/10/19

Orange Sweet Osmanthus (Osmanthus Fragrans Var. Aurantiacus) キンモクセイ（金木犀）

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Orange sweet osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans var. aurantiacus), a variety of sweet osmanthus, is native to China and came to Japan in the 17th century. As its name suggests, the flowers are so fragrant that orange sweet osmanthus is designated as one of the three most fragrant flowers in Japan together with winter daphne and cape jasmine.

The orange sweet osmanthus has been propagated from cuttings in Japan because only male plants were imported to Japan. 

2025/10/24 Fully open

2025/10/24

Pink and White Bush Clovers (Lespedeza Buergeri) キハギ（木萩）

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Pink and white bush clovers (Lespedeza buergeri) can be found across Japan. Generally, bush clovers produce pink/purple flowers but this type produces flowers which have the large white upper petal (banner) with a base and the two side petals (wings) both of which are purple.

2025/10/18

2025/10/18

Greater Death's Head Hawkmoth (Acherontia Lachesis) クロメンガタスズメ（黒面形天蛾）

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

I believe this is a caterpillar of a bee robber or greater death's head hawkmoth (Acherontia lachesis). I've seen many caterpillars and always find it difficult to know what it is but this is an easy one because of its size. 

A larva of the bee robber is as long as 10 cm - 12 cm and changes its color. The caterpillar in the photo is on a stem with its head on top. Its Japanese name is "kuromengata suzume," translating to "black face hawkmoth" after a black (or skull) face on its thorax. Unusually, its English and Japanese names coincide, which makes me want to see its adults.

2025/10/12

2025/10/17

Plains Cupid (Luthrodes Pandava) クロマダラソテツシジミ（黒斑蘇鉄小灰蝶）

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Plains cupid or cycad blue (Luthrodes pandava) resembles pale grass blue. Both are beautifully shiny blue gray on the upper side. One of the distinct differences between the two (I can tell) though is that the former has an orange spot on the underside.

Their existence has been confirmed in Japan since the 1990s to 2000s and now can be found almost across Japan.      

2025/10/8

2025/10/8

Pink Clematis ピンクのクレマチス

英語の後に日本語が続きます。

There are various types of clematis in terms of color, the number of petals, and whether single or double-flowered. These are single flowered pink clematis with only four petals. Clematis can be found across the globe. They generally flower from spring to autumn but some flower only once a year while others everblooming. 

This clematis had only two flowers, suggesting its being near the end of flowering season.  

2025/10/3

2025/10/3

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

Auaxa Sulphurea キエダシャク（黄枝尺）

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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