Loved Forest of Tokyoite: Koishikawa Botanical Garden 小石川植物園

 

Tokyo has several big parks. But in terms of degree of educational facilities especially for botany, the best is a botanical garden, called Koishikawa Botanical Garden 小石川植物園 of the Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo. I normally don’t tell you my adventure outside of Kanagawa Prefecture. But today I stretched my legs a bit to visit this next-door forest. The reason? I found the place is very good for sorting out jumbled knowledge about the plants in my brain. No wonder. It’s the place for education, of course. All the plants in the Garden have name plates. Sometimes displays explain educational value from the vegetable. All are endorsed by the Tokyo University. It’s a textbook place. Besides, it is located, really, in the middle of megalopolis Tokyo. No difficulty to face access!

The southwest corner of the Botanical Garden.
We cannot enter from here.

There are two main metro stations to go to the Koishikawa Botanical Garden. One is Hakusan Station 白山駅 (I-13) of Mita Line 都営三田線, and another is Myogadani Station 茗荷谷駅 (M23) of Marunouchi Line 営団地下鉄丸ノ内線. The map from these stations can be seen here. If you google the place, please use the key word, 小石川植物園正門受付発売所 (in Japanese), or Koishikawa Botanical Garden (in English). From Hakusan Station, it’s less than 10 minutes’ walk. From Myogadani Station, it’s about 15 minutes’ to the Garden. Whichever place you choose for your starting point, the town around the garden is a residential area in the 20th-century Tokyo style. Not many skyscrapers. Kids, lots of, go to nearby school. I’ve been there with a lady coming from a very rural place from the west of Japan. She was impressed by kids playing in playgrounds of the area. You know, Japan is the country of senior citizens. Especially in countryside it is sometimes difficult to find a group of kids. Koishikawa district is in the middle of Tokyo, and lots of lots of young families congregate there for jobs, educational opportunities, convenience of city life, etc. etc. For them, I’m sure the Botanical Garden is very important place.

The Garden is secluded by this fence.

We have to pay to enter the garden. The price list can be found here. Please be philosophical for money strapped universities charging entrance fees. The Garden has a very long history. The place came out in Japanese history books when in 1652 the land was given to 6 years’ old Tokugawa Tokumatsu 徳川徳松, the 4th son of the 3rd Tokugawa Shogun Iemitsu 家光. Tokumatsu, or rather his father, built a nice mansion, and the boy grew up there. In 1653 when his eldest brother Ietsuna 家綱 became the 4th Tokugawa Shogun, Tokumatsu was given the adult name Tsunayoshi 綱吉. Sadly Tsunayoshi’s 3 elder brothers died young without heir. So, Tsunayoshi became the 5th Shogun in 1680. Tsunayoshi moved to Edo castle (the present-day Imperial Palace), and in 1684 his old home received specimens from the abolished Minami Herbarium 南薬園 in Minami-Azabu. The part of his garden was dedicated for Shogunate’s official herbarium of medicinal purposes. Later in 1721, the 8th Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune 徳川吉宗 expanded the herbarium covering the entire former mansion of Tsunayoshi, and beyond. It becomes more or less the current cite of Koishikawa Botanical Garden.

The entrance to the Garden

At the beginning, Yoshimune’s Palace Doctor was in charge of the herbarium. A bit later Shogun Yoshimune assigned two special samurais to take care of the herbarium and to manufacture medicines from the herbs. Half of the herbarium that was managed by Okada Rizaemon 岡田利左衛門 became in 1723 a hospital 小石川養生所 where commoners without money could come and be treated by trained MDs free of charge. The Garden was also used as an experimental farm to develop crops and vegetables for public welfare. One such vegetable was sweet potato. In 1735, scholar Aoki Konyoh 青木昆陽 was succeeded in harvesting sweet potato at Koishikawa Garden under cooler climate of Edo (Tokyo). His harvest was distributed especially famine-prone east and north Japan and saved lots of lives. As such, the place was a popular until around 1860 when the effect of European style polio vaccine became apparent, and the Shogunate established the official vaccination station in Akihabara. Traditional, aka Chinese, medicine employed in the Hospital was regarded outdated, and so the Koishikawa Hospital and Herbarium. The service of the place deteriorated.

Could you see a remnant of cobblestones?
It’s the place where people dried the herbs
harvested some 200 years ago.
The glasshouses behind are for research plants,
closed to the public.

The Garden keeps the tradition of
nurturing medicinal herbs.

In 1868 after Emperor Meiji moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, the new Japanese government determined to establish world class universities. They noticed the neglected Koishikawa Herbarium a good place for modern botany. In 1870, the former medicinal herbarium and hospital became Koishikawa Botanical Garden. Researching the history of the Garden, I’m impressed by the fact during the turbulent times, no one succeeded in destroying the forest and the herbarium of the site for, say, industrial factories or commercial shopping center et al. Many Japanese historical buildings and places were destroyed or sold by Meiji Government at that time. Numerous Japanese cultural treasures were dispersed to Europe or to the US. … Well, thanks to that, the impressionists in Paris could know Japanese Ukiyoe, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a series of excellent Buddhism statues. (I seriously think Boston’s collection of Buddha statues would be national treasures if they could have remained in Japan.) Why could the Koishikawa Herbarium survive? Admitting, huge trees are difficult to remove. … Maybe, people of the 19th century Tokyo kept emotional attachment to the Garden and the forest. And now we in the 21st century can enjoy the Shogun’s huge trees hundreds of years’ old.

The main college building in the Garden.
It’s normally closed to the public.

Speaking of the current research, the Garden is inviting visitors to experience VR of the anatomy of plants created by AI. It’s a kind of experimental show. The remaining schedule of the event is on March 10th and march 30th. Having fun there with VR-visors is free of charge (; entrance fee to the Garden is required). If you’re interested in the latest developments in Japanese academic botany, it will be an interesting opportunity. Next week, I tell you the plants I met in the Garden. Eccentric Japanese scholars have accumulated a strange list of world-wide plants. In my opinion, compared with the collection at the Kew, Koishikawa of 16ha with 4000 species of living plants (and 800 thousand specimens) are more “Otaku.” Yeah, 121ha of the Kew is larger, but … Please stay tuned. 😊 Oh, I must add this. U of TYO has another botanical garden open to the public in Nikko 日光, but they are closed during winter. The U also has several research forests mainly in Kanto Region, but they are accessible only with permission.

When we visited there, the plum garden was in full bloom.

Koishikawa Botanical Garden
Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo
3-7-1 Hakusan, Bunkyo-ku

Tokyo 112-0001

Pretty in Pink: Winter Buds

 

In the forests of Kanagawa Prefecture, unless that is of afforested conifers, the trees shed their leaves during winter. Yap, it’s natural for forests in cooler temperate climate, as in Japan. The trees show their trunks and boughs without any cover of leaves. Winter air is frozen. It’s a world of minimalists’ beauty in Zen like manner … Even though, there are several very talkative spots here and there. The first thing people notice is easier spotting of birds, especially little ones. There is no cover, aka leaves, for them to hide. Food is scarce and they are too busy pecking whatever meals, aka bugs, they can find in the boughs and twigs of trees. Hardworking birds sing and hop from twig to twig just before our eyes. It’s the best season for birdwatching, as you know. Another “lively” sites in winter forests of Kanagawa is winter buds.

Before trees have lots of leaves and flowers from spring to summer, they must have buds to sprout when the time comes, right? They need time for buds-preparation with enough nutrition, obviously. So, all trees, deciduous or otherwise, start producing buds when they have lots of leaves that manufacture nutrients through photosynthesis. For deciduous trees, they complete foundation building of buds by the end of summer. If we’re attentive, we can spot such buds within vigorous summer leaves of trees. When the season turns to chilly side, the buds are in gestation. Spring is approaching and the buds are mature enough at waiting wing to flush out their new leaves and flowers. In Kanagawa Prefecture, January and February are the best months to spot and admire these plump “winter” buds in forests. It’s fun, I tell you.

There’s a sort of trick to find winter buds. Look for the tip of twigs, then lower your eye along the twig. Basically, winter buds are formed on the first-year portion of a bough. Just think where we can find the leaves of summer. They are on the head of a bough, i.e. twig, right? So do the winter buds. Sometimes, the point of a twig is too fragile to be preserved during winter. In such a case, the first portion of a bough is gone at the point where buds start. The series of buds for such twig look like starting from the middle of a twig. That’s OK. In any case, winter deciduous forest can give us a clear vista of how the boughs and twigs are spreading from the trunk. It’s easy to spot buds.

It’s winter buds of Japanese maple.
The tips of twigs look like thin threads.
Inevitably, they are fragile and can be easily broken
 at the point where the series of winter buds starts.
More to this below.
Oh, by the way, I tell you next week
my adventure in a park where I took this photo.
It‘s not in Kanagawa but in Tokyo and
in one of the “oldest modern scientific botanical garden for Japan.”

You see?
Once we pick up only the orange lines in our mental map,
the scenery is like a modern painting …
I think they are Hydrangea luteovenosa
with dogwood like red in winter forest.

Their winter buds look like this.

There are several anatomical points if you’re serious about observing winter buds. But, today, let me just show you how pretty they are once we’ve noticed their existence. The opening act is by Ilex macropoda that will have handsome egg-shaped leaves which turn their colour from bright green to yellow in autumn. By that time, they have pretty and small red currants whose colouring scheme is perfect for gardens. Having said that, I think their winter buds are also cool. From that tiny gray triangular tip a bunch of leaves and flowers will sprout. It’s something of wonder.

The next, I think it’s Schizophragma hydrangeoides. Could you figure out some triangle beneath the bud? It’s where a previous season leaf was attached before it fell off as an autumn leaves.

Winter buds for Schizophragma hydrangeoides are strange looking. Their top bud at the point of a twig is often destroyed due to strong wind et al. Its leaves sprout adversely, i.e. the left-behind two winter buds sit neatly side-by-side, which look like hoofs of a cow. Also, this one is in bright pinky-red. By the way, their leaves and buds are larger than Japanese maple. If you’re hiking in Tanzawa during winter, look for them. It’s easier to find than for smaller Japanese maple.

Another pretty in pink is Quercus serrata. The trees are often big oak in our neighbhood, but its winter buds are this cute. They look like Christmas cake decorations. Come to think of it, they are baby part of a tree that would be vulnerable for UV rays. And during winter, not much is there for sun-shade for buds. A hypothesis is, red can protect babies and young leaves from such harms. Though it’s still a hypothesis.

Whateva. They are pretty, like winter buds for loose-flowered hornbeam. They stood out in greyish scenery of winter Tanzawa over a blue sky. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! Let’s take a deep breath!

Although the songs of birds sounds, probably, more clear in winter forest, it’ very quiet, meditative space. Then these winter buds come out almost mischievously with cute smile. Soon, they will be bushy extravaganza of summer forest. Metamorphoses ... It’s really a wonder.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with 

Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center

神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Spring Preparation: Natural dyeing with plum branches

 

Speaking plums, to have flowers opening in early spring, we have to take care of them. That is, we need to prune their branches and twigs which often go whichever direction they find convenient. If we leave them as they please, the entire tree ends up with tangled branches. During summer when they have lots of leaves, the system of branches and leaves has poor ventilation = infested by pests and mold. Inevitably, they will not have flowers, and no fruits will be harvested. On the other hand, during summer they do vigorous photosynthesis and so they need leaves. If we trim them during summer, the tree will be starved, and no flower could be expected, or, worse, the tree could die. So, we have to prune them sufficiently at the right moment. The timing of removing unruly twigs is after they shed their leaves in late autumn. The amount of cutting is … it’s difficult to say definitely. But several sure points are

1. We should remove twigs shoot up straight from the bough which will become the base of tangled up tree branches,
2. We have to be careful to cut branches that have winter buds. Reason? Obvious, isn’t it?

It’s a sorry state of a plum orchard in Niiharu.
I’ve never seen flowers here.
The place became accessible for Niiharu Lovers last year.
(Till then, it was a private property, off-limit for us.)
Let us see what we can do here.

Lovers of Niiharu take care of this plum tree,
and yearly harvest plum fruits.
Even though, the branches are like this.

So, I pruned twigs and branches of plum trees in my mom’s garden last fall. They are small trees and did not require me much effort. Besides, this year I had another mission from the gardening. I decided to use cut branches of plum trees for natural dyeing. Although the trees of my mom are small, the amount of trimmed twigs required two 20L garbage bags if I disposed of them straight to the garbage collectors. It’s a pity doing this especially when we can utilize them, so I thought. This week I tell you my adventure of natural dyeing with these plum twigs.

Mom’s plum flower this February. My labour of love 😊

First, we have to prepare the pruned branches for dyeing. I chose the standard method of natural dyeing: stewing the plants for a while to extract their dye and dunk the fabric in the colouring-stew. In order to obtain the dye essence efficiently, it’s better the “meat” of the plant thoroughly stewed. If the plant is a tree with a hard body, we need to julienne or mince them … Plum trees have robust bough. When the twigs were young, it was easy to chop them by scissors. But when they reached 0.5cm or so diameter, making minced twigs became really a hard work. I quickly gave up making minced plum trees and did a bit of googling how pros were doing. They use only the barks of plum tree for dyeing. Bravo! I employed this approach, but still, it was a hard work peeling the barks with a machete …

The trimmed twigs from mom’s trees.

Minced plum twigs. This was the limit I could handle.

Next, I folded these minced twigs and barks in drain-nets, close the mouths tightly, and threw them in a boiling pot.

The drain-nets

The minced twigs and peeled barks are in the nets.

The oven I borrowed from the Niiharu Lovers’ Association.

Boiling …

The nets were thrown in the pot.

After about an hour boiling the pot had rose-like colour. We were ready for dyeing. For natural dyeing we use fabric of animal origin, like silk and wool. When we plan to dye plant-based fabrics like cotton or linen, we must first soak the fabric in soy milk overnight and dry it. i.e. The protein has the power to bond with natural dye. This time, I found a bargain silk downtown, so I did not have to take this stage.

The pot an hour later. Could you figure out the tinged liquid inside?

Dunking a fabric with protein in the dye, and let it keep boiling. This time I stewed it for about an hour.

We’re plunging the silk in the pot.
On that day, kids from near-by junior-high
came to experience natural dyeing.

Then, mixed the fabric in the pot with chop sticks for a while.

The silk an hour later

An hour later, the white silk now had this colour. It was damned hot so I drained it carefully and gentry, then bathed the dyed silk in alum solution. It was to settle the color in the fabric. Alum is a fixative. Internet says many things about the concentration ratio for alum-bath, but among Niiharu-Lovers “It’s not important as long as the solution has enough alum dissolved.” So, I added about 2 tablespoons of alum in 10L water.

Alum and 10L water

Let the dyed fabric swim in the alum solution for a while, about 10 or 15 minutes. Drained it and washed it in a cold water. Squeezed the liquid from the fabric, and let it air dry. Don’t you find the colour of the silk lovely?

The silk is taking fixative bath of alum.

The pot after taking out the fabric.
It’s a lovely colour.
If you want to have more deeper colour on your fabric,
you use the liquid for the second round
after rinsing it with water.

There is another choice of fixing agent for natural dyeing. It‘s by iron. We can use nails for that, otherwise we purchase iron mordant liquid from internet. In general, iron fixing produces grey to dark brown color ... It‘s a matter of taste. For both cases, the liquid waste from dyeing can safely drained in forest when that’s not a huge amount like our natural dyeing adventure. I‘m going to use my pinky-orange dyed silk for spring throw-on. 😊 Better to have light color for this, don‘t you think?

Drying

It‘ll be my spring throw-on.💕🎵

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局
Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

Prehellenistic Plum Garden: Ohkura-yama Garden 大倉山公園

 

Around Yokohama, spring flowers of trees start their new year in turns. The first is wintersweet, which begins blossoming in the middle of January. This year, Yadoriki Wintersweet Festival やどりきロウバイまつり (; my post for February 1, 2019) is from January 13 to February 12. One more week is left … The grand finale is of course cherry blossoms (; my last year’s adventure with cherry blossoms is here), but around the same time in Kanagawa Prefecture flowers of peaches also reach its peak if not as gorgeous as cherries. Penultimate tree flower is Kawazu-zakura (Cerasus lannesiana ʽKawazu-zakura’) that kicks off flowering around the end of February. Kawazu-zakura was first identified in 1955 in Kawazu Town 河津町 of Izu Peninsula, the next door neighbour for Kanagawa Prefecture. So, we have several good places to admire this early flowering cherries, one of which is in Yadoriki Bus Stop along Nakatsu River. Between wintersweets and Kawazu-zakura, we have one elegant entry for this pageantry of flowers. It’s plum.

2023 Cherry blossoms in
Historical Landmark for Saimyoji Temple 最明寺史跡

Plum flowers have been loved by Japanese culture for millennia, in poetry, novel, theatre, song, dance, paintings, sculptures, pottery, etc. etc. As Kanagawa Prefecture has Kamakura 鎌倉, the ancient city that was the centre for Japanese politics between the 12th and 14th centuries, the old temples et al in and around Kamakura have famous plum gardens. Also the area around Odawara 小田原 was once governed by a powerful warlord family, Hojo Clan 北条氏, in the 15th and 16th centuries, which made several cultural establishment in the area famous for plum trees. Actually, one of the local special goods for Odawara is products made of plum fruits. Compared with such grande dames, as Yokohama is a young city that became a large community after the middle of the 19th century, we don’t have gardens with such traditional accreditation. But we’re trying. Sankei-en Garden 三渓園 in Naka Ward began tending plum trees some 100 years ago. They begin looked “traditional.” City Parks also plant plums, and the municipality hires professional gardeners to look after them. One of such “newly traditional plum gardens” is in Ohkura-yama 大倉山 where lots of nursery schools are located for parents commuting to the offices in Tokyo. The name of the place is, surprisingly, Ohkura-yama Garden 大倉山公園.

The plum flowers in Niinaru. We’re trying.

The route to Ohkura-yama Plum Garden is easy. You get off at Ohkura-yama Station of Tokyu Toyoko Line, leave the station to the west. That is on your left when you face the Tokyo direction. There are three roads in front of you. Please take the steep slope running along the train track. It’s a narrow but paved commuter road going up. It turns left soon, and so, please simply follow the way. In no time you’ll see the entrance of Ohkura-yama Park on your left. The first feature we can notice at the Park is a white stone building that was a place of research. The Park was the property of a wealthy merchant, Kunihiko Ohkura 大倉邦彦 who opened here in 1932 a research institute named Okura Institute for the Study of Spiritual Culture 大倉精神文化研究所. The theme of the study for his institute was “spiritual culture” and the academic activities were lively until 1945. After World War II, the research was declined here, and in 1981 the foundation for the institute sold the site with the buildings to the City of Yokohama. The place still has several researchers who are studying mainly the cultural activities of historical businesspeople and the local community. It also has a library with the collection of related matters, open to the public. The facility itself is the property of the City so that its halls and seminar rooms are rented for civic activities of Yokohama. My friends say they had a festival of good documentary films several years ago. (The current scheduling of events there can be seen from here and here.) With some reason, Mr. Ohkura thought classic Greek style was suitable for his project of studying spiritual culture. So, the design of the building is of prehellenistic style by a then-famous architect Uheiji Nagano 長野宇平次. Inside was built with woods in the style of Shintoism shrines. Now in the 21st century, the entire building looks exotic for everybody on earth. It could be VERY Japanese architecture …

Entrance to Ohkura-yama Park

A white building over there …

Okura Institute for the Study of Spiritual Culture

Inside

Plums? Oh, yes. After we’re impressed by the white stone building, simply follow the strolling path along the ridge of a hill. Within a few minutes, we’ll see a mortar-shaped area on your left with about 200 various plum trees. It’s Ohkura-yama Plum Garden. Compared with Sankei-en or Negishi Shinrin Park 根岸森林公園, the Ohkura-yama Garden is smaller, but the way the trees are planted is well-thought of, and they are looked after well. Already in early February this year, some trees are in full-bloom and the sweet scent of plum flowers are wafting in chilly February air. Each tree has a name plate. If you’re afficionado of Japanese poetry or Chinese characters, it’s a fun to discuss with friends the intention of a godparent for the flower. The season of plum flowers lasts until the end of February or early March. Above all, it’s surprising the calm atmosphere of the garden, considering busy Tokyu Toyoko Line and JR Bullet Train Line run the east valley of this Ohkura-yama hill. Probably because of this, we can find lots of wild birds chirping here and there peacefully. It’s a relaxing place in the middle of downtown. Please visit there and have a nice lunch with your sandwiches. 😊

Please follow the ridge way, then,

On your left is the plum garden.

Nice place for lunch

I loved this one with cool green in their calyx.

An Oriental Turtle Dove in the adjacent forest. Hello!

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420