Spring flowers in Japan: shibazakura

This is one flower that most people seem to call by its Japanese name rather than its English name. Possibly because fields of shibazakura are not more common in Japan than in other countries. I personally had never seen a large scale display of shibazakura until I came to Japan, but I've always liked the flower. At home they are often grown in a section of a garden. But the displays here in Japan are out of this world, creating a veritable carpet of pink, white or purple.

Their name in English, for the record, is moss phlox or pink phlox. Another term for them is creeping phlox, which refers to all phlox that create ground cover. That is,  phlox that grows low creating carpet like coverage. Regular phlox, which is also the name of the genus, grows upright. The meaning of shibazakura in the flower language is agreement, but it can also mean chicken heart!

In the Kanto plain, in other words the Greater Tokyo area, shibazakura grows mainly in April. There are two very famous shibazakura displays in the Kanto area. One, Fuji Shibazakura with Mt Fuji in the background at Fuji kawaguchiko in Yamanashi Prefecture. The other, Shibazakura Hill with Mt Buko in the background at Hitsujiyama Park in Saitama Prefecture.