Cerulean in the Rain. Siberian or Japanese Iris, Zoological and Botanical Gardens, Kumamoto, Japan
It rained. In fact, it poured. Leaving my hotel, I felt a bit like those Samurai who were trained in Kumamoto to swim upright in full armour treading water while fending off enemy arrows. I swam my way - as it were - to the small but very worthwhile Contemporary Arts Museum. A fine special exhibition on the theme of 'Water, Fire and Earth. The source of creativity'. I was especially taken by a huge painting by Yusuke Asai in which he used earth and mud from various locations around here (Kumamoto, Aso, Amakusa) as his watercolor paints. And that steeled my hope, too, for a let-up in the downpourings outside. But no...
Still I took the tram and half an hour later at the entrance of the Zoo and Botanical Garden it was still gray but the rain was less relentless.
Don't come here for the pathetic zoo with small cages and a tiny menagerie. The botanical garden, part of which is styled 'Japanese', is worthwhile. It's got a large relatively commonplace greenhouse but the grounds are fascinating because they have a large variety of flowering plants. Moreover, there's a very good collection of Japanese trees.
This pretty Iris sanguinea shows how wet it was! At the end of the eighteenth century Carl Per Thunberg in his Flora of Japan described it as Iris sibirica, and he is precisely short about its - how much can one say, indeed! - color: Cerulean. Our Iris has gone by many names. A name not seen very often is used by the Park Authorities here: Iris nertchinskia Lodd. This is a designation that indicates that the famous horticulturalist family Loddiges at the beginning of the nineteenth century claimed to have received this Iris from the region of Kolyvan, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk in southern Siberia, presumably from the Nertchinsk mountains (there's a town of that name, too). Some doubt existed right from the beginning whether the provenance claimed for the Loddiges' plant was correct. The recognized scientific name today is Iris sanguinea Hornem. ex Donn. Whatever the case, in those days it ranged eastwards through China and the Korean peninsula to Japan. And that's where Thunberg had seen it.
Cerulean in the Rain. Siberian or Japanese Iris, Zoological and Botanical Gardens, Kumamoto, Japan
It rained. In fact, it poured. Leaving my hotel, I felt a bit like those Samurai who were trained in Kumamoto to swim upright in full armour treading water while fending off enemy arrows. I swam my way - as it were - to the small but very worthwhile Contemporary Arts Museum. A fine special exhibition on the theme of 'Water, Fire and Earth. The source of creativity'. I was especially taken by a huge painting by Yusuke Asai in which he used earth and mud from various locations around here (Kumamoto, Aso, Amakusa) as his watercolor paints. And that steeled my hope, too, for a let-up in the downpourings outside. But no...
Still I took the tram and half an hour later at the entrance of the Zoo and Botanical Garden it was still gray but the rain was less relentless.
Don't come here for the pathetic zoo with small cages and a tiny menagerie. The botanical garden, part of which is styled 'Japanese', is worthwhile. It's got a large relatively commonplace greenhouse but the grounds are fascinating because they have a large variety of flowering plants. Moreover, there's a very good collection of Japanese trees.
This pretty Iris sanguinea shows how wet it was! At the end of the eighteenth century Carl Per Thunberg in his Flora of Japan described it as Iris sibirica, and he is precisely short about its - how much can one say, indeed! - color: Cerulean. Our Iris has gone by many names. A name not seen very often is used by the Park Authorities here: Iris nertchinskia Lodd. This is a designation that indicates that the famous horticulturalist family Loddiges at the beginning of the nineteenth century claimed to have received this Iris from the region of Kolyvan, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk in southern Siberia, presumably from the Nertchinsk mountains (there's a town of that name, too). Some doubt existed right from the beginning whether the provenance claimed for the Loddiges' plant was correct. The recognized scientific name today is Iris sanguinea Hornem. ex Donn. Whatever the case, in those days it ranged eastwards through China and the Korean peninsula to Japan. And that's where Thunberg had seen it.