I first stumbled across Japanese woodblock prints (‘ukiyo-e’, ‘images of the floating world’) some years ago at the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge. I’ve been thoroughly hooked since. It’s been a journey through the exquisite simplicity of early masters like Harunobu and Utamaro, the compositional genius of Hokusai and Hiroshige, and the storytelling of Kunisada, among others.

Two subjects in particular seem to have had an enduring appeal. The first is what is known as bijin-ga (beautiful women), usually geishas and such. The second is sakura, which is Japanese for ‘cherry blossom’. A great many of the intimate dramas of ukiyo-e art are, in fact, set in a landscape of flowering cherry trees.

The clue is in the language. The Japanese actually have a word for flower viewing. They call it ‘hanami’, and it usually refers to the active and organised enjoyment of cherry blossoms in spring. The practice is so deep-rooted that it influenced urban design. The city of Edo (later Tokyo), for example, contained strategically-planted stands of cherry trees under which people would hold parties.

Even among the humming technological wizardry of modern-day Japan, hanami parties show no sign of going away. If anything, they’ve become more popular and better-organised. And, just like sushi and manga comics, they’ve been exported to Europe and the US.

My proposal is that we should seriously consider importing hanami to Malta. If that sounds far-flung, we might consider two things. First, one is likely never more than a few metres away from an object that started life in Japan. Second, a good chunk of the tuna that ends up thinly-sliced in Tokyo is fattened a few miles off our coast. Thus the sanity of my appeal for a latter-day Japonisme.

There is, however, a problem. Cherry trees are all but unknown in Malta. There are one or two specimens here and there but the type is certainly not a feature of our gardens and roadsides. More worryingly, the few that there are don’t seem to bloom in any grand way, probably because our climate is too warm for them. The prospects for hanami, then, look bleak.

Except there’s hope in substitution. The other day I went for an early morning walk at Xagħra l-Ħamra overlooking Golden Bay. It is painful to imagine that only a few years ago someone had the bright idea that the place would make a perfect golf course. The relief is that on that particular occasion, good sense prevailed. Xagħra l-Ħamra is now part of the protected Majjistral Nature and History Park.

Now is possibly the best time of the year to see what the greens would have destroyed. The colours of Maltese garigue (xagħri) don’t travel equally well. From a distance it all appears devalued to a greyish-brown. As one moves closer it turns into a patchwork of dark green and the red earth that gives Xagħra l-Ħamra, and indeed all Maltese soil, its name. Then, finally, it all becomes a carpet of scented lilac shrubs.

A noisy lilac too, thanks to the persistent hum of the millions of bees and other insects drawn to the nectar. In turn, chameleons place themselves strategically within a tongue’s distance of the blooms and enjoy weeks of effortlessness. I’m told that the nectar is so highly-prized that bee-keepers from all over Malta move their hives to the xagħri of the north. It’s a form of transhumance really, rather like the cowherds of the Alps who move their animals to high pasture every summer.

The wild thyme (sagħtar) flowering in May-June is one of the great floral events of the Maltese countryside. I can think of at least five others. Such is the species-richness of local flora that a botanist would probably add dozens more.

The next appointment is with the sea squills (għansar) in August. It takes single-mindedness to flower at the peak of a Maltese summer. Sea squills have it in bunches. Their bulbs, which are said to have medicinal properties, are essentially huge sustenance chambers for the tall white flowers that spring up like ranks of sentinels around the coast. In places like Comino and parts of Pembroke, their density is spectacular.

Late winter sees the mass bloom of asphodels (berwieq), hardy plants that produce meadows of white in all but the most disturbed places. The de rigueur adjective for asphodels is ‘ghostly’. That’s because the ‘asphodel meadows’ is where the souls of Greek mythology ended up, and also because the cue was later picked up by Romantic authors keen to capitalise on anything ancient.

My proposal is that we should seriously consider importing hanami to Malta

The asphodel flowering likes to coincide with that of a shrub known as spurge (tengħud). Spurge bushes are rounded and sculptural in form. In late February-early March they suddenly burst into a sea of bright yellow flowers. They’re possibly at their best at Ta’ Ċenċ, on the stretch of rocky ground that overlooks the channel.

Which brings us to the season of riots, cliches, and tired adjectives, at least as far as flowers are concerned. To me, three mass flowerings stand out. The first is that of the giant fennel (ferla), which produces stands of shoulder-high yellow blooms that have a primeval quality about them. The second is that of crown daisies (lellux), possibly the environmental rogue’s best ally as it tends to visually absolve the sins of the bulldozer and dumper. Inevitably, the third is that of poppies (pepprin).

All of these, and others (the country is a sea of oleander flowers as I write), mean that it could be hanami all the year round. Or maybe not, and therein lies the attraction.

First, and to borrow an expression from the art of the woodblock prints, hanami is about a floating world. The whole point about the thyme, squill, asphodel, spurge, fennel, daisy, and poppy flowerings is that each lasts a couple of weeks at the most. Flowerings are about nature’s excess, in measured doses. I’ll spare you the obvious metaphors but it is clear why such transient beauty might strike a chord.

Second, flowerings purvey a kind of cyclical time which is different from the linear clocked one which we use to board flights or drive to work. It is also one which is pregnant with associations.

I cannot think of asphodels, for example, without a feeling of days growing longer and warmer. Deep-red poppies bring to mind Good Friday processions and the flavour of kwareżimal, faded-red ones the sensation of cold-water May dips. At the risk of sounding like a pseud, I’d say it’s all very Proustian.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

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