Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/187

Rh A very curious sight is to be seen at Dango-zaka in Tōkyō at the proper season. It consists of chrysanthemums worked into all sorts of shapes, men and gods, boats, bridges, castles, etc., etc. Generally some historical or mythological scene is pourtrayed, or else some tableau from a popular drama. There, too, may be seen very fine natural chrysanthemums, though not quite so fine as the élite of Tōkyō society is admitted to gaze on once a year in the beautiful grounds of the old palace at Akasaka. The mere variety is amazing. There is not only every colour, but every shape. Some of the blossoms are immense,—larger across than a man's hand can stretch. Some are like large snow balls,—the petals all smooth, and curved in one on the top of the other. Others resemble the tousled head of a Scotch terrier. Some have long filaments stretched out like star-fish, and some, as if to counterbalance the giants, have their petals atrophied into mere drooping hairs. But the strangest thing of all is to see five or six kinds, of various colours and sizes, growing together on the same plant, a nosegay with only one stem,—the result of judicious grafting. Of the same kind of blossoms, as many as thirteen hundred and twenty have been known to be produced on one plant! In other cases the triumph is just the opposite way:—the whole energies of a plant are made to concentrate on the production of a single blossom, a tawny, dishevelled monster, perhaps, called "Sleepy Head" (for each variety has some quaint name), or else the "Golden Dew," or the "White Dragon," or the "Fisher's Lantern" a dark russet this or the "Robe of Feathers," a richly clustering pink and white, or, loveliest of all, the "Starlit Night," a delicately fretted creature, looking like Iceland moss covered with hoar-frost. These results are obtained only by the accumulated toil of years, and especially by care, repeated many times daily, during the seven months that precede the period of blossoming. Such care is amply rewarded; for the chrysanthemum is a flower which will last several weeks if duly sheltered from the early frosts.

Much of the above, doubtless, will be no news to the