hydrangea あじさい (kamakura)

Posted by timothy sullivan (Tokyo, Japan) on 6 June 2009 in Plant & Nature.

Hydrangea--one of the most striking of early summertime flowers.

Each June, as I stroll about in Kamakura from temple to temple, I admire the brilliant beauty of hydrangea (or "ajisai" as they're known in Japanese). During one of my walks I began pondering the origin of the English word.

Recalling my grade school memorization of Greek and Latin suffixes/prefixes, in my mind I solved half of the answer: hydr- is water. But is that "water" from the color of the flower's petals, or because the flower blooms in water? And what of the "-angea"?

So when I returned home, the answer was a short Googleclick away.

(As per www.etymonline.com:)
1753, coined in Mod.L. by Linnæus as compound of Gk. hydr-, stem of hydor "water" + angeion "vessel, capsule;" so called from the shrub's cup-shaped seed pods.

Ha! Fascinating. So hydrangea's name derives more from shape than anything else. But what of the Japanese meaning, ajisai: 紫(purple)陽(sun)花(flower)

(As per http://gogen-allguide.com:)
あじさいの語源・由来
あじさいは、古く「あづさヰ（あぢさヰ）」であった。
「あづ（あぢ）」は集まるさまを意味し、特に小さいものが集まることを表す語。
「さヰ」は「真藍（さあい）」の約、もしくは接頭語の「さ」と「藍（あい）」の約で、青い小花が集まって咲くことから、この名が付けられたとされる。
ただし、あじさいを漢字で「集真藍」と書いたとする説は誤りで、語源を辿って漢字を当てはめるならば「集真藍」の字であろうというものである。
漢字の「紫陽花」は中国の招賢寺にあった花の名前で、日本のあじさいとは異なるものであったといわれる。
日本の古い文献では、『万葉集』で「紫陽花」の例が見られる。
あじさいには「七変化」や「七色花」などの異名があることから、新潟県や佐賀県では七面鳥の皮膚の色が変わることに喩え、「七面鳥」といった呼び方もされる。

(My attempt at translation; unfortunately the etymology only traces the word's origin back to China--and doesn't explain why "sun" factored in. Pity.)

Etymological origin of Hydrangeas
Ajisai (hydrangea) derives from "azusawi" (or "azisawi").

"Azu" (or "azi") (集) means to gather things--in particular, small things--together.
"Sawi"(真藍) roughly means "true indigo", and when paired with the "azu" prefix yields a word with the sense of "blossoming of small blue flowers, gathered together."

However, the kanji compound "azusawi" (集真藍) is erroneous. Instead, looking further back to the Chinese origin of the kanji characters, the origin of what we know as "ajisai" comes from a flower of the same name found at Zhejiang Temple in China (n.b. located roughly around here). This same word appears as far back as the 8th century A.D., when it was used in the Manyoushuu ("The Anthology of Myriad Leaves"), Japan's oldest anthology of poems.

Hydrangeas had numerous other names in Japanese, being known under such names as "sevenchange" (七変化) and "seven colored flower" (七色花), or in Niigata and Saga prefectures as "turkey" (七面鳥), owing to the fowl's ability to change the color of its skin.

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