Field Diary vol.2-2

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I searched weeds of my field in this time.
 

What’s Henbit?

Henbit is called “Hotokenoza” in Japanese.

Hotokenoza can be separated like “Hotoke” “no” “za”.

“Hotoke” means buddha.

“no” means of.

“za” means the location of where budda sits down at.

It is a Shiso species although its taste is very bitter so people don’t eat it.

Excepting in Hokkaido, you can find it anywhere in Japan.

It keeps honey inside of its flower and only bees can approach it so they carry its pollen to the other one.

When it gets warm, they don’t fly so the flower doesn’t bloom to do self-pollination.

I’m really surprised of their vitality.

What’s bitter cress?

Bitter cress comes from Europe.

It’s resistant to dry environment so it tends to expand to a lot of places.

It is called “Tanetukebana”, which means ‘the flower that soak its seeds in water’.

It’s not clear, right ?

It is related with the history of Japan.

It was known to old Japanese as the weeds which bloom when they soak the rice seed in water.

Bitter cress seeds are sold as food in Japan though I’ve never known that.

It means the other weed species are sold like that.

That’s interesting, right ?

Thank you for reading!