Veronica Flower

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Veronica (inu fuguri)

***** Location: Europe, Japan
***** Season: Early Spring
***** Category: Plant

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Explanation

Veronica, inufuguri, inu-fuguri, inu no fuguri
......　いぬふぐり、いぬのふぐり、犬のふぐり（犬ふぐり）
...... オオイヌフグリ
Veronica didyma
... Plant like a gourd, hyootan gusa　瓢箪草　ひょうたんぐさ
field speedwell, grey field-speedwell

Small blue, sometimes pink to lavender colored flowers cover the ground everywhere now. It is one of the earliest Spring flowers around here. Like a proper weed, it covers the still empty flowerbeds, the roadside, the small path between the rice fields and the stone walls between the fields.

But the origin of this flower is Europe. Other sources place it as native to South Asia. It has been introduced to Japan in the early Meiji Period and soon taken its place in the local landscape. Sometimes it looks like a blue carpet on an empty field.

陰嚢, fuguri, means the scrotum, testicles. Literally this flower is named "testicles of a dog", but that has nothing to with the looks of it.
The small flowers have four petals and the color gets more intensive toward the outside.



all the colors of spring -
weeds
by the roadside

© Photo and Haiku, Gabi Greve, 2006

Click on the photo to see more pictures.

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Veronica polita

Annual. . The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Insects. The plant is self-fertile.
The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and requires well-drained soil. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It requires moist soil.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Veronica+didyma

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Worldwide use

Names in different countries

DE : Glanz-Ehrenpreis
DK : blank ærenpris
EN : grey field-speedwell
ES : veronica polita
FR : véronique luisante
IT : veronica lucida
NL : gladde ereprijs
PT : verónica-azul

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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

犬ふぐり　色なき畦と　思ひしに　
及川　貞


空がもし　砕けなばこの　犬ふぐり　
林　翔

http://home.g05.itscom.net/lacerise/haiku/soushun.html

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haiku yomi hajimete shiru ya inu fuguri



reading haiku -
for the first time I come to know
veronica flowers
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

緑風さん

Look at a page with more haiga and haiku about this plant.
http://haiku.blog.livedoor.com/ichiran.php?kg=3038

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She names
her blue-eyed baby Veronica -
for the wee flowers she loves.

Zhanna P. Rader


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. Nakamura Sakuo on Facebook


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Related words

***** Spring (haru, Japan)


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