Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/335

Rh sent some of the flushed and lovely boughs, with verses in their praise, to his consort. Jealousy is hardly an attribute of Japanese wives, so a harem of the young trees was set out close to the palace, and the practice is now general throughout the country: priest and peasant, as well as prince, have groves of them, or at the least single trees, near their dwellings.

Another exalted admirer of the Cherry was the Shogun Yoshimune, who is said to have planted ten thousand of the trees along the banks of the Tamagawa (which is the main water-supply of the great city of Tokio), in order, so the charming story has it, that the purity of the flowers should also keep the water pure!

Of one of the famous Fujiwara family in the twelfth century, who so dearly loved the flowers that he was nicknamed ‘Sakura Machi,’ and who had planted over a hundred trees near his house, the story is told that, miserable at their short-lived beauty, he prayed to the god Taisan-fu-kuu to let them last longer. His prayer was answered, and for three even weeks the ruddy glory lingered.

But loved as the Cherry blossoms are by Emperor and artist, by poet and plain man alike, this is not for their sensuous beauty alone, not for their suggestion of an almost human claim to flesh and blood, their yet