Kanji for Chrysanthemum

菊 (kiku) is the chrysanthemum — the grass crown 艹 over rice gathered in a hand: the flower drawn as cultivated abundance. No flower in Japan carries more rank. The sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum is the crest of the imperial family — the throne itself is called the Chrysanthemum Throne — and the flower marks passports, embassies and the 50-yen… no, the Imperial seal above all.

Its festival is the ninth day of the ninth month, 重陽 — the Chrysanthemum Festival — when chrysanthemum sake was drunk for long life; the flower blooms late and outlasts the year’s other blossoms, so it came to stand for endurance and nobility in autumn. 菊人形, chrysanthemum dolls dressed in living petals, are still an autumn spectacle.

One modern nuance: white chrysanthemums are the standard funeral flower in Japan, so the bloom has a solemn register alongside the imperial one. In names — Kiku, Kikuko — it reads classical and dignified.