| Anna C. Hartshorne (1860-1957) |
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Japan and Her People
(1904):
"Less elaborate, but even more fascinating than a full matsuri are the en-nichi, or flower fairs, held also at night, and two or three times a month in each quarter of [Tokyo], on the Day of the Bird, Day of the Monkey, and so on. Toward sunset the dealers begin to arrive, pulling flat two-wheeled carts loaded with plants, some in pots, more having the roots tied up in straw; they prop up the body of the cart at the side of the street, and set out the plants on and around it in a splendid mass of bloom. Others spread mats beside the roadway, or set up booths as at a festival, laying out all manner of wares; here a china merchant sits on the ground among his bowls and tea-pots; there is a basket maker, or a second-hand dealer displaying tastefully a few old candlesticks and platters and books and imitation bronzes; sometimes, but very, very rarely, some bit of real value. As it grows dark, tins of kerosene, mounted on pointed sticks thrust into the ground, flare wildly among the flowers; a dense crowd gathers, walking up and down, admiring, criticising, bargaining; three or four times the real price is asked, then a few sen -- cents -- paid at last for a budding [162] plum tree, or a chrysanthemum all over snowy balls, fit for a prize show in America. Sometimes dwarf trees are most in evidence, pine, maple, quince, or plums, white and red, which planted together signify the Gen-pei, the War of the Reds and Whites; or there are great satin-petaled peonies, or azaleas, camelias, magnolias, dwarf Wistaria vines, purple or white. All through the year there is a succession, from the first yellow ranunculus, the New Year 'Flower of Happiness,' round to the autumn nanten berries which foreigners substitute for holly at Christmas time. It is a graceful thing, this nanten, 'heavenly bamboo,' as the name means; it grows into a tall shrub, with slender branches and racemes of scarlet berries, and dark, glossy pinnate leaves that do look very like bamboo. It is hardy all around Tokyo, and it seems strange that such a pretty thing should not he well known abroad." "The best time to visit Ikegami is in March, when the plums are in blossom; on a sheltered slope below the monastery there are some wonderful old trees, gnarled and twisted as the Japanese love to see them -- rivals of the famous 'Creeping Dragon' trees at Kameido, in Tokyo. The priests have also a wonderful collection of dwarf trees, some over a hundred years old; one has a trunk a foot thick, and grows in an ornamental porcelain pot only a few inches larger; another taller one bends down its branches like a weeping willow, set with stars of fragrant white flowers. The red plum blossoms very early, and can be persuaded to take on marvelous shapes, but it is less esteemed than the pink or the white, because it has no fragrance." 1 |
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1
Hartshorne, Anna C.
Japan and Her People
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.; 1904; in two volumes), Vol. I, pp.
161
and 206.
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