How the Japanese describe morning glories

Let's start off by broadly illustrating the categories of the Japanese writing systems:

Kana - syllabic characeters, sub divided into Katakana and Hiragana. Katakana is used for Japanese words, while Hiragana's used for foreign words such as cake and hotel and some names.

Romanji - uses the latin alphabet, used by English-speaking people.

Kanji - Chinese characters used in additional to Kana.

We will be focusing on Kanji as this system was used in the olden days to describe morning glories. The general pattern for MG description is as follows:

1. Leaf colour
2. Leaf shape
3. Flower colour
4. Flower shape
5. If blooms are doubled or not

I would like to take these kanji description as an example.

青針葉南天　白剣咲(筒咲）　牡丹出　B－34
青斑入縮緬蜻蛉葉　枝垂台咲(藤色）　A－40
青常抱葉　白丸咲　白種子　B-21.

When a software translation is used it is translated to this:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3216809.

I will be dissecting these kanji section by section to accurately get the description (thank you again to a friend who had helped me out with the first one and the nomenclature)......

青針葉南天　白剣咲(筒咲）　牡丹出

青 - this means green in the old days, but modern reading is blue; this describes the colour leaves
針 - needle; describes the form of the leaf
葉 - leaves
南天 -nandina like leaves

白 - white; describing the colour bloom
剣 - sword; describing the flower form
咲 - flower bloom

牡丹 - double
出 - demono

*Does not quite follow the general formual, but I hope you get the gist of it.....

So therefore to describe this morning glory,
Green, needle nandina like-leaves with white sword like-double flower blooms (demono) would be more accurate than
Blue needle leaf nandina white sword �� (tube ��) peony coming out.



This message was edited Jul 8, 2009 10:44 AM

青斑入縮緬蜻蛉葉　枝垂台咲(藤色)

青 green
斑入 variegated
縮緬 crepe
蜻蛉 dragonfly
葉 leaf

枝 twig, branch
垂 droop
台 ?
咲 flower bloom

藤 wisteria
色 color

So therefore to describe this morning glory,
Green, variegated, crepe dragonfly leaves, branches drooping, wisteria coloured blooms instead of
Blue variegated crepe dragonfly leaf branch perpendicular stands �� (mauve) A-40

*my description for the flower form is not completed

青常抱葉　白丸咲　白種子

青 green
常 normal/orthodox
抱 ?
葉 leaf　

白 white
丸 round
咲 flower bloom

白 white
種 seed
子 child/offspring

Green, orthodox leaf with white round blooms and produces white seeds instead of
Blue normal �� leaf white circular �� white seeds B-21

This message was edited Jul 8, 2009 11:10 AM

This message was edited Jul 8, 2009 11:11 AM

How does a name like Fujishibori evolve from such a system? I guess it's a marketing name.

I like the system for naming, one can know with some accuracy what to expect the flower to look like.

Eliz - EXCELLENT thread!!! Your research is wonderful! Now I can look at Japanese seed packets and might be able to decipher what they say as far as cultivar of MG. :-)

抱 ?

This message was edited Jul 2, 2010 1:18 PM