Canola, a birthday flower of February 6th

I absolutely adore canola flowers, also sometimes called rapeseed flowers in English. They are called "nanohana" (菜の花 / なのはな) in Japanese. Despite being a very prominent flower in Japan, they are only the birthday flower of one day annually. And that is today, February 6th. 

I think one of the reasons I love canola flowers so much is that they are one of the first large scale flower scenes you can see in the year. And they come after a couple of months of limited bloom. Canola can bloom anytime between December and April. However, most people say February to April, because that is the most common time for them. But there are early blooming varieties that can bloom as early as December. In Kawagoe, we have early blooming canola that bloom in January and February. The photo in this post is of the more common type, and it was taken in April. 

In the Japanese language of flowers, known as the 'hanakotoba', canola flowers / nanohana, represent “cheerfulness,” or “liveliness” and “brightness”. A very apt meaning, don't you think?