☆ 梅一輪一輪ほどの暖かさ Flowers of Japanese Apricots

● 梅一輪一輪ほどの暖かさ　　（Japanese Apricot ）

When the plum tree blooms with each new bloom, it's becoming warmer.　（英訳）

これは、服部嵐雪（はっとりらんせつ）の有名な俳句。梅の花が寒さのなかで、一輪また一輪と咲くにつれて、気候も少しずつ暖かさを増すという意味。

This is the famous Haiku composed by Ransetsu Hattori in Japan.

The meaning is that every flower of a plum brings the warm climate little by little toward the spring.

奈良県民族博物館を訪れた。その敷地内にあるみんぱく梅林には、３種類、約１４０本の梅の木が植えられており、２～３月にかけて美しい梅の花を観賞できる。

３種類とは、紅梅、白梅、蝋梅（黄梅）を言う。残念ながら、当日は、すでに蝋梅（黄梅）の最盛期が過ぎていて、すでに花は、萎えていた。

I have visited the Plum Tree Park in the Ethnographic Museum in Nara Prefecture. In there, approx. 140 plum trees are planted in 3 types of red, white and yellow blossoms. We can appreciate the beautiful plum blossoms between mid-January and the beginning of April. Unfortunately, yellow blossoms already had withered because the heyday of it already passed.

梅の花は、ぱっと咲いてぱっと散る桜と違って開花時期が１月２０日から４月５日ごろと長期に亘って楽しめる。１月中旬から咲きだすもの、３月中旬ごろから咲きだすものなど、さまざまである。

梅の花が、咲き方も散り方もゆっくりしている。

We can enjoy the plum flower for long term unlike the cherry blossoms.

Some kinds of plum begin to bloom from mid-January and the other kinds begin to bloom from mid-March, and plum blossoms will bloom slowly and also fall slowly.

While, cherry blossoms will be in bloom almost all at once from the end of March and early April, but they will be falling within a short period of time, therefore Plum and Cherry is really in contrast.

奈良時代から平安時代にかけて、貴族の間で人気を博し、花見と言えば梅の花を観賞したそうだ。それは、まだ寒い１月中旬ごろから咲き始める梅の花を愛でながら、遠い春を待ち、歌を詠んで楽しんだのであろう。まことに風流そのものだ。その後、江戸時代辺りから本格的に桜の花を観賞するようになったそうである。

They say that it was popular to watch the flower of the plum among the aristocracy during the Heian period from the Nara era (710～1192).

The reason is that they were enjoying in reading the poem (songs) admiring the plum flowers beginning to bloom though it is still cold from mid-January, and waiting for the distant spring every minute. It was really an elegant entertainment, isn’t it?

Then, it became popular to watch the cherry blossoms in earnest from around the Edo period (1600～1867).