Walking through Tsukuba`s old neighborhoods in October and November, you will very likely see some impressive chrysanthemums (kiku) displayed out by the front doors of homes and shops, their big, heavy looking yellow, white or pink blossoms  sitting atop their slender leaf laden stems, often supported  by round metal frames.  You will  often find prize winning MUMS on display and even shows of chrysanthemum SCULPTURE ( kiku ningyo) throughout this season at venues such as shrines and parks.

Though they are NOT a native species, KIKU have not only come to be known as one of Japan`s two important representative flowers of autumn ( the other being HAGI- bush clover), but they have also become the symbol of Japan`s Imperial Family, and institition which in English is in fact often referred to as the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Believed by the ancient Chinese to possess special medicinal powers, specificallythe ability to cleanse one of spiritual impurities and providing ETERNAL YOUTH, there is evidence suggesting that chysanthemums were introduced to Japan as early as the 5th century. There are,  however, NO references to this flower in the first ( and perhaps greatest) of Japan`s poetry anthologies, the Manyoshu ( compiled in the 8th century).In the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794- 1185) Periods the aristocrats of the Japanese Court adopted the Tang Chinese custom of drinking chrysanthemum wine and rubbing ones body with cotton swabs soaked with chrysanthemum dew on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month( for the Chinese, odd numbers are YANG- bright and positive. Nine is the highest odd numeral ,which would make 9/9 the luckiest day of the year- right when the mums were in bloom). This event was officially called the choyo no sekku （重陽の節句), one of the five seasonal change days which the Japanese took on from China. These customs are described by Sei Shonagon in her Pillow Book  ( Makura no Soshi- ) and by Murasaki Shikibu, in her diary( both from the Heian Period).

Because of  the fact that the chrysanthemum was so prestigious, with its Chinese lineage and its supposed purifying and life extending powers  ( besides the beauty of the flower itself ! ) many of Japans noble families, from the Heian Period on, adopted it in one form or another into their family crests or onto their kimonos or furniture.

However, what makes the chrysanthemum especially symbolic of the Imperial Family of Japan, is the fact that the large round , yellow blossoms are reminiscent of THE SUN- the ancestor, according to Japanese mythology, in the form of AMATERASU, of the all Japanese Emperors.