Carpe Diem #601, Chinese Bellflower (or Kikyo)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another day has gone by, and I am still in lack of time, so this post will not be that long. Today our prompt is the last one of the Seven Sacred Autumn Flowers, the Chinese Bellflower or Kikyo, and I like this plant/flower a lot. It's a very fragile flower and here in the Netherlands we call this sometimes 'paper-flower".

Chinese Bellflower, growing to 60 cm (24 in) tall by 30 cm (12 in) wide, it is an herbaceous perennial with dark green leaves and blue flowers in late summer. A notable feature of the plant is the flower bud which swells like a balloon before fully opening. The five petals are fused together into a bell shape at the base, like its relatives, the campanulas. There are varieties with white, pink and purple blooms in cultivation. In Korea, white flowers are more common.


Credits: Chinese Bellflower or Kikyo

I have sought the Internet and I ran into the following haiku on Chinese Bellflower (or Kikyo):

raiun ni kikyo murasaki yurchajimu

under thunderheads
the purple of the bellflowers
begins to sway

© Kyoko Kaneko

in a pot, Chinese
bellflowers begin to fade -
misty rain

© Shiki

Chinese bellflowers
bloom in mother's color
dark violet

© Murasaki Sagano

All three are gorgeous and I even found a haiku by Yozakura, our unknown haiku-poet:

purple bellflowers
swaying in the breeze -
the sound of water

© Yozakura

And I love to share my attempt here also:

fragile beauty
purple flowers like paper
Chinese bellflower

© Chèvrefeuille

Credits: Fragile Beauty ... like paper

And now it is up to you to write an all new haiku in response of this post about the Chinese Bellflower.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 11th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, our second haiku by Tomas Tranströmer, our featured haiku poet this month, later on.