There they go to sit and gaze at the grape-like clusters of pale purple flowers that hang more than a cubit long over the wooden trellis, and grow daily down toward their own reflections in the pond beneath, vying with one another in Narcissus-like endeavor.
And the people, as they sip their tea on the veranda opposite, behold a doubled delight, the flower itself and its mirrored image stretching to kiss.
After the wistaria comes the tree-peony, and then the iris, with its trefoil flowers broader than a man may span, and at all colors under the sky.

To one who has seen the great Japanese fleur-de-lis, France looks ludicrously infelicitous in her choice of emblem.
But the list grows too long, limited as it is only by its own annual repetition.

We have as yet reached but the first week in June; the summer and autumn are still to come, the first bringing the lotus for its crown, and the second the chrysanthemum.

And lazily grand the lotus is, itself the embodiment of the spirit of the drowsy August air, the very essence of Buddha-like repose.

The castle moats are its special domain, which in this its flowering season it wrests wholly from their more proper occupant--the water.