Bleeding Heart

Once, there was a poor young man who fell in love with a beautiful and wealthy maiden. Though he did not have much, he sought to find the most rare and expensive gifts for her in the hopes of winning her affection. First, he gave her a pair of sweet, luxurious rabbits to keep as pets.

Image courtesy of The Outspoken Yam

Although she accepted his gift, she refused to accept his love. Undeterred, he found a pair of slippers, crafted from the finest silk and presented them to her.

Image courtesy of More Friends and a Blog

Again, the maiden accepted his gift but his love she still refused to accept. Desperate, the young man searched far and wide until he came across the most exquisite pair of earrings. These he spent all of his meager savings on and tried one last time to win the love of the maiden.

Image courtesy of More Friends and a Blog

The heartless maiden took the earrings but refused the young man. With nothing left to give, the man finally realized that the maiden would never love him and heartbroken, he took his sword and stabbed himself in the heart.

Image courtesy of The Outspoken Yam

From where he fell, the first bleeding heart was born, a symbol of unrequited love.

Image courtesy of The Outspoken Yam

The tale you have just read is a Japanese folklore concerning the bleeding heart plant. As you can see from the pictures above, the flower can be used to tell the story, with the petals  symbolizing the gifts that the young man sent to the maiden.

Image courtesy of More Friends and a Blog

For another version of the tale from the 1900s as told by Annie Fellows Johnston, click here.

About the Plant

Common Name: Bleeding heart or Asian bleeding heart

Scientific Name: Lamprocapnos spectabilis

Type: Herbaceous perennial

Native to: Siberia, northern China, Japan, Korea

Also known as: Lady-in-a-bath, lyre flower, Dutchman's breeches

In other languages: Девојачко срце (Devojačko srce), 荷包牡丹 (Hébāo mǔdān), ケマンソウ (Kemansō), 금낭화 (Geumnanghwa)

Height: 2-3 ft.

Bloom time: April - May

Cultivation: Moist and cool climate, prefers part- to full-shade

Lady-in-a-bath (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sources

Asanuma, Lisa. "Thursday Myth & Legends 101: Bleeding Hearts Flower." Tales from the Hollow Tree. Wordpress, 27 August 2009. Web. 13 February 2015 <https://hollowtreetales.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/thursday-myths-legends-101-bleeding-heart-flower/>.

Heather. "The Bleeding Heart Story." More Friends and a Blog. Blogger, 08 May 2007. Web. 15 February 2015 <http://fourfriendsandablog.blogspot.com/2007/05/bleeding-heart-story.html>.

Jenna. "Bleeding Hearts: A Japanese Legend." The Outspoken Yam. Wordpress, 13 May 2014. Web. 13 February 2015 <http://www.theoutspokenyam.com/bleeding-hearts-a-japanese-legend/>.

Johnston, Annie Fellows. "The Legend of the Bleeding Heart." The Literature Network. Web. 13 February 2015 <http://www.online-literature.com/annie-johnston/4021/>.

"Lamprocapnos." Wikipedia. Web. 13 February 2015 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamprocapnos>.

"Lamprocapnos spectabilis." Plant Finder. Missouri Botanical Garden. Web. 13 February 2015 <http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=c480>.

A Berry By Any Other Name

Question of the day: what do fruits like blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries all have in common?

Well, if their names are anything to go by, they are all berries; yet that seems to be where the commonality ends.

Color-wise, shape-wise, and texture wise, they are all pretty different from one another aren't they? One is dark blue in color, tiny and round in shape, and smooth in texture, another is (in its most commonly-known form) dark red, ovular, and bumpy, while the last is bright red, triangular, and leafy with little pits embedded in its surface.
Perhaps a cross-sectional view will offer more insight then? As you can see below however, these fruits are just as different on the inside as they are on the outside. Perhaps the way they grow then? That too further exemplifies their differences as blueberries grow on bushes, raspberries are perennials with woody stems, while strawberries produce runners (whose growth are akin to that of a vine's). Well then, you may be wondering, what exactly makes a berry a berry?
Culinarily (and in everyday English), a "berry" refers to a small, round, seedless/pitless fruit, such as the aforementioned ones. Botanically however, a "berry" is defined as a fleshy fruit that has developed from a single flower and contains one ovary. Raspberries, on the other hand, develop from the merging of several ovaries. Likewise, the seeds of a berry are often found embedded within its flesh, but if you examine a strawberry, the yellow pits dotting its surface are in fact the actual fruit containing the seeds. In other words, of the three featured "berries,"--blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry--the blueberry is the only one considered a "true" berry.

In following with the botanical definition, other "true" berries include--believe it or not--grapes, avocados, even bananas--all of which grow from a single flower and have a single ovary, with their seeds (or pit) embedded within their flesh. In fact, a berry-bearing plant is referred to as bacciferous or baccate from the Latin bacca, meaning berry. And for those of you familiar with Roman mythology, Bacchus (Dionysus in Greek mythology), whose name is related to bacca, was the god of wine (and what is wine made of but grapes, which are in fact considered "true" berries).

Where does that leave raspberries and strawberries then? As mentioned before, raspberries develop from the merging of several ovaries making them (and other fruits like them such as blackberries) aggregate fruits. So each of those round little spheres that makes up a raspberry is actually its own little fruit with its own little seed (which you can see if you look closely). Strawberries, also under the category of aggregate fruit, are aggregates of achenes, the yellow speckles on its surface (often mistaken for seeds). However, strawberries can also be considered an accessory fruit in that its flesh is not developed from the solely ovary alone, but from other parts of the plant as well.

So what do blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries all have in common? Culinarily, they make for great jams, pies, and smoothies, and also complement waffles, pancakes, ice cream, and yogurt quite well. Botanically, however? Besides being fruits, not much else. Only the blueberry is a "true" berry, while the other two are aggregate fruits. Now, isn't that something else? And with that, I leave you all with a little food for thought:

Image courtesy of Underground Health

Until next time~

Sources
"Berry." Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Web. 06 February 2015 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry>.

Ehler, James T. "True Berries: Facts & Trivia: Berries & Fruits." FoodReference.com. FoodReference.com. Web. 06 February 2015 <http://www.foodreference.com/html/f-berry-trivia.html>.

Lorge, Greta. "Bananas are Berries?" Stanford Alumni Magazine. Stanford University. Web. 06 February 2015 <https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=63171>.

P.S. If you're like me and like to post multiple pictures side by side, I recommend this very helpful and easy-to-understand blog post.

제주 재래종 감귤원 - Jeju Native Tangerines

여러분 안녕하세요!

제주 귤의 사진을 있어요! ㅋㅋㅋ

짠~

So I discovered that I do actually have pictures of tangerine trees from Jeju--from 한림공원 Hallim Park actually. Not quite out in the road, but it will have to do.

제주 재래종 감귤원

Japan 在来種 柑橘園

China 济州 传统 桔子园 

(濟州 傳統 桔子園)

US Jeju Native Tangerines

"제주 재래종 감귤원은 과거 고려시대와 조선시대에는 중요한 진상품이었습니다. 근래에는 대량의 개량된 감귤 (온주밀감, 한라봉 등) 재배로 인하여 재래종감귤은 찾아보기 어렵게 되었습니다. 한림공원 재래종 감귤원에는 오랜 엿날에 제주도에서 재배하던 재래종 감귤 12종 (당유자, 동정귤, 빈귤 병귤, 사두감, 삼보감, 유자, 지각, 진귤, 청귤, 편귤, 홍귤)을 소중히 보존하여 관리하고 있습니다. 또한 열매가 작은 금감, 열매가 큰 마두문단, 여름에도 열매를 볼 수 있는 하귤 등 다양한 열매 형태의 감귤 나무를 전시하고 있습니다.

Jeju native tangerines were considered to be one of the royal foods for the king during the Koryo and Chosun dynasty. Nowadays, it is difficult to find the native tangerines due to cross-breeding of tangerine plantation (Onjumilgam, Hallabong). Jeju Native Tangerine Garden shows twelve different native tangerines (Dangyuja, Dongjeonggyul, Bingyul, Byeonggyul, Sadugam, Sambogam, Yuja, ㅓJigak, Jinggyul, Cheonggyul, Pyeongyul, Honggyul) which have been grown in Jeju Island a long time ago. Also, there are another species of tangerine with different shapes and sizes."

ㅋㅋㅋ Until next time~~

한라산의 한라봉 - Hallasan's Hallabong

오랜 만이에요 여러분! 잘 지냈어요?? ㅋㅋㅋ

As usually seems to be the case...it has been awhile hasn't it? ^^;; My sincerest apologies for that, but hopefully this post will placate you.

So last weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to spend a weekend at 제주도--Jeju Island!

The view from our hotel room--you wouldn't believe how intense those waves were!

Now Jeju Island is supposedly known for three things--roaring winds (I was almost blown over at one point!), magnificent rocks (most definitely), and women (해녀!). Food-wise however, Jeju Island is known for its green tea, chocolate, and tangerines. The green tea and chocolate I did not know about, but the tangerines I did, and there were literally rows upon rows of tangerine trees growing everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It was pretty amazing and I wish I had gotten a picture of the multitude of trees with their vivid orange tangerines gleaming brightly under the sunlight--I repeat, it was pretty amazing and I really should have gotten a picture of at least one tangerine tree.

But, as you can tell from the post title, today's entry is not about tangerines but about the 한라봉 (Hallabong). Now what, you might be asking, is a 한라봉?

This, folks (on the left), is a 한라봉 (with our oh-so-familiar tangerine on the right):

Common Name: Dekopan (デコポン)

Native to: Japan

(Actually developed in Japan in 1972, it is a hybrid between the Kiyomi and ponkan)

In other languages: 한라봉 (hallabong)

Distinctive traits: Protruding bump at the top, large size, sweet taste

Usually picked: November-December

Source of information: Official Site of Korea Tourism, Wikipedia

As mentioned above, the 한라봉 is actually native to Japan (does it count as being native to a place if it was developed??), but for our purposes we shall be referring to its Korean name. 

The 한라봉 got its Korean name from the 한라산 Hallasan Mountain (the tallest mountain in all of South Korea) from which it is mainly grown. However, throughout our tour of Jeju, we actually saw a lot of 할머니 (or 할망 in the Jeju dialect, meaning grandmother) selling them and our professor was kind (and awesome) enough to get some for us to try. True to word, they were actually quite sweet (and tasty)!

If you recall, tangerines are one of three foods that Jeju is known for, another being chocolate! Along with all the tangerines and 한라봉, chocolates were also being sold. And not milk chocolate or dark chocolate, but tangerine chocolate, green tea (the last of the three famous foods) chocolate, cactus chocolate (that's right--cactus), and of course, 한라봉 chocolate. Many places were selling 5 or 6 boxes (with about 15 chocolates per box) for ₩10000 (approximately US$10) and there were usually free samples too. Living up to their reputation, the chocolates were delicious and I really regret not buying any boxes of chocolates, if not for myself then at least for my friends and family. ㅠㅠ

So what is the takeaway message? If you are ever in Jeju Island, make sure to try the chocolates, try the 한라봉, and don't forget to buy some to take back with you!

잘 가요! Until next time~~

Throwback Thursday

Happy Thursday everyone!

So I decided that my choice of font made my posts a little hard to read, so hopefully this size will be a little less stressful on the eyes.

I also decided to change the time stamp on my posts to reflect my current location. ^-^

Anyways, it has been a while hasn't it (why do I feel like too many of my posts start like that?)? Because it has been so long since my last post, I thought it fitting that I do a throwback post just to assure my loyal reader(s) and follower(s) that I am still blogging and plant loving. I actually decided to post because I was out food shopping and it just so happened that I came across a box (the last!) of 도라지차 (dorajicha) or, bellflower, tea.

If that sounds familiar to you, then kudos to you! If not, here's a little reminder:

My very first post, coincidentally enough, so happened to feature the bellflower, or the balloon flower, the common name. As I mentioned in my first post, the root of the bellflower can be eaten in salads, or used to treat coughs and other inflammatory diseases, while the flower itself, I believe, can be used (among other types of flowers, spices, and herbs) to flavor sake.

I'll be honest here; besides wanting to try this tea because it is definitely something I have never found back home, I also wanted to try this tea because I wrote about the flower in this blog.

So here is the box of tea, an individual tea bag, and the cup of tea it produced, tea bag and all:

As you can see, the box featured a picture of the whole bellflower: flower, stem, roots, and all, though I am not sure if the whole plant was in my tea bag. It was pretty decent tea, certainly not my favorite, but quite enjoyable. Surprisingly, it had a grainy scent and taste to it which leads me to my next picture:

I'll be honest again: I was so curious about (and surprised by) the grainy flavor that after I finished the cup, I decided to rip open the tea bag just to see what was inside. Unfortunately, with it being steeped and all, it was rather hard to tell what exactly was in there--some of it looked like stems, some of it looked a little nutty, and some of it was just hard to discern so moral of this lesson: I still don't know what parts of the bellflower was used.

It's nice to be back on blogger and I certainly had fun with this post--but don't expect regular updates--unfortunately I am both too lazy and too busy for that. In fact, upon going to the dashboard to create this post, I found an incomplete post that I've been meaning to finish. I'm sure I'll get to it someday.

Until next time~

Flowers as an Art Form

So a question I have gotten a lot is, how did someone like me, who grew up in New York City, get interested in plants of all things? The answer, which I am almost abashed to admit, is that I got into plants through a drama. Or rather, I suppose it would be more apt to say that my curiosity was peaked. If you must know, it was a Taiwanese drama called 下一站，幸福 or Autumn's Concerto in English. Now this is not a drama about plants, but one of the characters is a gardener and at one point he made a comment about the symbolic meaning behind a daisy, which got me curious enough to look it up. What I found was this really cool Victorian-era means of communication known as the Language of Flowers, as well as its Japanese counterpart, 花言葉 (Hanakotoba) both of which, as you might have guessed, appoint symbolic meanings to flowers, which people then used as a means of communication. Actually I might have briefly introduced this in a previous post of mine, come to think of it. In any case, this led to an interest in plants beyond just their symbolic meaning and here I am today.

Anyways, so why am I mentioning this? Well besides 花言葉, the Japanese also had 生け花 (Ikebana), which was the art of flower arranging, which I saw a bit of during my time in Taiwan.

國立中正紀念堂 (Guólì zhōngzhèng jìniàn táng)
國立中正紀念堂 (Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall) in Taipei was quite a lovely place.

What a lovely view!

The cool thing about the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was that the outside was a botanical garden!

 But that is not what I want to focus on. There were a lot of different halls and exhibits within the actual building which was pretty large. One of these exhibits featured

(Unfortunately it was during this trip that my phone decided to mess with me, so the dimensions of the pictures are quite small, so I was not able to zoom in to read the names of the plants used in these pieces. Darn phone.)

I was not sure if this exhibit had anything to do with Chiang Kai-shek--perhaps this exhibit was in his honor, maybe he really liked flowers--but I was quite taken with these 插花作品--these flower arrangements--which utilized many different varieties of flowers alongside other objects such as, in the picture above, logs, sometimes baskets, some had water pools, some were larger, some more contained. These arrangements really called to mind ikebana, 花道 in Chinese, which would have been unsurprising as Taiwan was once a colony under Japan.

The base is actually water-filled

Another piece which had water

This was a larger scale work which stood on the floor and reached up quite high

Basket

I'm pretty sure that real flowers were used for these pieces, which is pretty amazing. I love the variation within each piece, not just in terms of flower types, but in terms of color and shape as well, all serving to complement each other. Contrary to popular belief, ikebana is more than just arranging flowers in a vase; a lot of it has to do with shape, line, and form, and focuses on more than just the floral part of a plant, but also its leaves and stem as well, which I think have been captured very well in these pieces. I definitely recommend looking at an ikebana exhibit if you get the chance to.

Until next time~

Taipei: The City as a Botanical Garden

Apparently I missed blogging so much that I feel the need to do a second post tonight. Lucky you. Haha, it's more like I have too much to say and if I don't say it now, I would probably feel too lazy again.

Anyways, I am being quite unoriginal here as the title and theme of this post is from the poster I made for my Chinese class. As I mentioned in the previous post, I did not have time to visit a botanical garden while in Taiwan, but Taipei, as the title suggests, served as a botanical garden. I guess this had to do with how environmentally-conscious Taipei seemed to be, but there were a lot of labelled plants throughout the city. Granted, you might not find as much information as you would at a botanical garden, but that is pretty understandable.

國立臺灣大學 (National Taiwan University)
Seeing as my own college is an arboretum, I suppose I should not have been surprised to see that the plants at National Taiwan University were also labeled, especially since they have an agronomy department and offer, I'm pretty sure, quite a few plant science courses. Still it was cool to see plants labeled especially on such a huge campus; not only that, but some of the streets were named after plants as well.

楓香 (Fēng xiāng)
Chinese Sweetgum

The bark on this tree is so cool!
蘇鐵  (Sūtiě)
Sago Cycas

NTU even has an official flower, the azalea (杜鵑花 - Dùjuān huā), which were planted all over campus in an array of colors from white to light pink to magenta.

國立故宮博物院 (National Palace Museum)
Outside of the National Palace Museum, we saw quite a few camphor trees, which were labeled, as well as a large sign with information on the camphor tree--an important tree in Chinese culture perhaps?

樟樹 (Zhāngshù)
Camphor Tree

I've made it big for those of you who can read Chinese

The cool thing about this sign is that it offers quite a bit of information for a street sign; besides the Chinese name, it also has the English and scientific names, as well as other (Chinese) names, traits of the tree, and where it is native to (Taiwan), albeit all in Chinese. It even has closeups of what the flowers look like.

臺北市立動物園 (Taipei Zoo)
The zoo was another unexpected source of plant names. What's more, there was even a few large signs with the picture and name of flowers which attract certain types of butterflies, which I found pretty cool.

There is a butterfly on that apple slice

The cool billboard of flowers and butterflies

I'm pretty sure this butterfly and flower is featured on one of those billboards

Just two of the many little signs lying around the zoo helpfully informing visitors of what these plants are, plus many of them are native to Taiwan!

What's more, besides having just a panda house or a desert animal enclosure, the zoo also had a section for ferns. How cool is that?

Unfortunately I did not have a chance to go in and check it out as my class was moving pretty fast--it would have been nice to go in though.

臺北孔廟 (Taipei Confucius Temple)

Like the zoo, the temple had a lot of plants which were native to Taiwan. Like the camphor tree sign, these signs had the Chinese, English, and scientific names of the plants, along with general information like family, characteristics, native to, and usages, in both Chinese and English, the first I saw. Many of these plants had medicinal purposes, which I wonder if it had anything to do with being at a temple.

桂花 (Guìhuā)
Sweet Olive

肉桂 (Ròuguì)
Cassia Bark Tree

To conclude, while I may have characterized Taipei as a city serving as a botanical garden, most of these identification signs were in locations, such as museums and zoos, which would receive a lot of visitors. This could, in part, be due to the high awareness of environmental conservation in Taiwan, and so could be seen as an attempt to increase public knowledge on local flora. However, seeing that most of the signs were in Chinese, the information would only be accessible to a certain audience, which makes me wonder how knowledgeable the average Taiwanese person is on plant identification. Furthermore, since the information is pretty general ("used medicinally" as opposed to "used to treat coughs"), how knowledgeable is the average Taiwanese person on specific uses for plants compared to general usages? How florally aware was someone living in Taiwan 20 years ago as opposed to now? 

Wow, this started out as a blog post and ended up sounding like some report, or like my poster. Oops. ^^;; Anyways, just some food for thought. :)

Until next time~