Microseason: Peonies Bloom

SPRING

GRAIN RAIN

PEONIES BLOOM

30 April - 4 May

Botan, known as the “King of a Hundred Flowers,” unfurls its voluminous petals. The flowering of the peony has long been recognized as a turning point in the traditional microseasonal calendar. With a bloom period of roughly ten days, the peony appears just as Spring prepares to give way to Summer. Its presence is not merely decorative, but an unmistakable sign of change.

Peonies are believed to have been introduced to Japan from China around the year 500, initially as a medicinal plant. In classical herbalism, its root was used to treat convulsions, pain, and inflammation. It is perhaps this dual nature, both aesthetic and practical, that gives the flower its elevated status.

By the Heian period, starting in the late 700s, peonies began being cultivated in courtly and temple gardens for ornamental purposes. Its noble bearing and refined fragrance made it a natural subject in Japanese painting, poetry, and textile motifs. Even today, botan karakusa, a traditional textile pattern of peonies entwined with arabesques, is considered among the most prestigious of meibutsugiré, the famed textile fragments frequently used in Buddhist altar adornments and high-ranking scroll mountings.

Peony blossoms typically measure 10 to 20 centimeters across and may appear as single, double, or multi-tiered blooms. While peonies can be found in a wide spectrum of colors, from crimson, pale pink, white, yellow, to violet, the traditional Japanese color known as botaniro, peony color, refers specifically to a vivid shade of reddish-purple.

When we speak of peonies, we must also simultaneously touch on the Chinese peony shakuyaku. While both belong to the Paeonia genus and resemble each other closely, they differ in subtle ways. Botan is a woody shrub that produces multiple flowers on branching stems, while shakuyaku is a herbaceous plant that blooms with a single flower at the tip of a slender stalk. Botan leaves tend to have matte surfaces with deep lobes, whereas shakuyaku leaves are glossier and smoother. And another floral cousin of the peony is the yaezakura, or double-petaled cherry blossom. Sometimes called “peony cherry,” its dense, layered petals evoke the rich form of a peony in bloom. Some varieties of yaezakura continue to flower into early May, overlapping neatly with this microseason.

One of the most iconic cultural pairings is the peony with karajishi, the mythic Chinese lion. Known as karajishi botan, this motif combines the “King of Beasts” with the “King of Flowers,” a potent symbol of strength, nobility, and protection. The motif was introduced from China in the late 1500s and became especially popular around the early 1800s. According to legend, lions sleep beneath peonies at night, and the dew from the flowers is said to kill the tiny insects that are the lions’ only weakness, adding another layer to the flower’s mystique as a guardian. This symbolic combination has found its way into Noh and Kabuki theater as well. In the Noh play Shakkyo, The Stone Bridge, lions serving the bodhisattva Monju perform a powerful dance among red and white peonies, praying for peace and prosperity. This performance later evolved into the famous Kabuki piece Renjishi, often performed as a father-and-son duet, continuing the tradition of lion and peony symbolism on the stage.

During this season, we pair or tea with botamochi, mochi rice wrapped in anko, sweetly braised adzuki beans. The adzuki beans are a symbol of protection in Japanese culture, believed to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune. Consumed during the Spring Equinox and around the blooming of the peony, botamochi serves as a reminder of the enduring connection between the natural world and human culture. We have a saying “botamochi from the shelf”​. In English there is a saying with a similar meaning “fell into my lap”. Alluding to a kismet moment, when you may be sitting and a botamochi simply falls from the shelf and onto your hands. An unexpected lucky situation that occurs without effort. It’s our responsibility to recognize this great luck.

Photo credit: Momoko Nakamura