Pickerel weed and konagi

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Pickerel weed, pickerelweed

***** Location: North America
***** Season: Summer
***** Category: Plant

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Explanation




Pontederia cordata
Pontederia is a genus of tristylous aquatic plants, commonly called the pickerel weeds. Pontederia is endemic to the Americas, distributed from Canada to Argentina, where it is found in shallow water or on mud. The genus was named by Linnaeus in honour of the Italian botanist Giulio Pontedera.

Pontederia plants have large waxy leaves, succulent stems and a thick pad of fibrous roots. The roots give rise to rhizomes that allow rapid colonization by vegetative reproduction. Species are perennial, and produce a large spike of flowers in the summer. There is a species of bee (Dufourea novae-angliae) that exclusively visits Pontederia cordata; waterfowl also eat the fruit of the plant.

Pontederia cordata, and another member of the family, Eichhornia crassipes, have become invasive in many tropical and temperate parts of the globe, but are, on the other hand, efficient biological filters of polluted water. in constructed wetlands.
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Worldwide use

Japan



nagaba mizu aoi ながばみずあおい（長葉水葵）
Pontederia cordata
ポンテデリア・コルダータ
細長葉水葵（ホソナガバミズアオイ）

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Monochoria vaginalis is a species of flowering plant in the water hyacinth family known by several common names, including
heartleaf false pickerelweed and
oval-leafed pondweed.

It is native to much of Asia and across many of the Pacific Islands, and it is known in other areas as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. An aquatic plant, it is invasive in rice paddies and other water bodies. This is an annual or perennial herb growing in water from a small rhizome. It is quite variable in morphology.
The shiny green leaves are up to about 12 centimeters long and 10 wide and are borne on rigid, hollow petioles. The inflorescence bears 3 to 25 flowers which open underwater and all around the same time. Each has six purple-blue tepals just over a centimeter long. The fruit is a capsule about a centimeter long which contains many tiny winged seeds.
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kigo for mid-spring

konagi 小水葱 (こなぎ)
heartleaf false pickerelweed
..... sasanagi 細水葱（ささなぎ）
Monochoria vaginalis. oval-leafed pondweed

konagi tsumu こなぎ摘む（こなぎつむ）picking konagi

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kigo for early autumn

konagi no hana 小水葱の花 （こなぎのはな)
konagi flowers
sasanagi no hana 細水葱の花（ささなぎのはな）
hanakonagi, hana konagi 花こなぎ（はなこなぎ）


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

なまぐさし小菜葱が上の鮠の腸
namagusashi konagi ga ue no hae no wata

Matsuo Basho　松尾芭蕉、(1693)

fish stench:
on top of waterweed
dace entrails
Tr. Barnhill



How fishy they smell!
on a waterweed,
dace entrails.
Tr. Ueda



From the weeds -
the smell of
fish guts
Tr. Addiss


This was written on a very hot day, when Basho met his haikai friends at the residence Tookaboo 別宅桃花坊 Tokabo.
The fish in the pond were trying to avoid the heat by hiding under the green leaves, but finally succumbed to the heat.


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ripples split the pickerel weed--
an empty canoe
drifts to shore

--Richard Jordan
source : tinywords.com


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Related words



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