6 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



afterwards called "Chii-hsien," meaning " Chrysanthemum 

 City/' 



In later days one of his fellow-countrymen, also a poet, 

 apostrophising a bed of Chrysanthemums in full bloom, 

 remembering the fame of T'ao, says : 



" Yet say not that they bloom to no purpose : 

 For did they not by their charms inspire 

 T'ao to poetry and conviviality." 



Other famous Chinese growers are still known by name, 

 but we must pass on to Japan. 



In that country the flower is of more recent introduc- 

 tion. The Japanese have adopted the Chrysanthemum as 

 the emblem of' their most exalted order, one which is only 

 conferred upon royalty and persons of the highest distinc- 

 tion. It was about the year A.D. 900 that Uda, Emperor 

 of Japan, first instituted the famous Chrysanthemum Show 

 in the gardens of the Imperial residence at Tokio. In 

 Japan, as in China, this favourite flower is largely used 

 as a decorative subject in every class of native art work, 

 such as bronzes, pottery, porcelain, lacquer-ware, ivory, 

 cloisonne-ware, and in textile fabrics. In A.D. 1186 the 

 sword hilts of the reigning Emperor were decorated with 

 figures of the flower, and a conventionalised form of it is 

 used, and has been, for centuries past as the crest and 

 official seal of the Mikado. 



The first European author to mention the Chrysanthe- 

 mum was Breynius, in 1689. A little later Rheede van 

 Draakenstein, the author of the Hortus Malabaricus^ de- 

 scribed it. Engelbert Kaempfer visited Japan in 1690, and 

 in his Amoenitates Exoticae, published in 1712, he describes 

 our popular autumn flower under the name of Matricaria^ 



