Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/406

284 carefully, to decorate their homes. And furthermore, I have seen them exalted in the sacred niche, the honourable altar of the house, in many, many humble homes. A fine old Japanese gentleman at the Yokohama Nursery told me that the Auratum Lily is cultivated for its flowers as well as for its edible bulb; but it is only the bulb more or less worn out by age that is eaten, when it is past its prime, and its flowers are not such as it produced in earlier years. Also it provides a bigger dish, with just as good a flavour as that of the smaller ones. Like the darkie saying about Hyacinth bells, the Japanese believe that for each year there is a new flower on the old stalk.

August is the month of Lotus flowers, as Japan is the land of them. At dawn, on dreaming moat and lake, their réveillé salute of opening buds is sounded. Hardly longer than the much loved Convolvulus blooms do they last, for a day sees the height of their perfection of shape and line, and then the petals fall, to show, like the other favourite, a seed-pod of a design as richly decorative, as gracefully shaped, as the flower. For both these poetry-inspired plants will the Japanese (and even some foreigners) get up an hour before day—when the day comes very early—to catch, at the hallowed moment of transformation, the opening blossoms. Kofu is famous for its Lotuses—the great Castle moat is starred white with them, as in the picture