Keeping in my recent tradition of Japanese-themed posts, here's one that I meant to put up back in November but some tech problems stopped me from doing so (damn you, iWeb).

The New York Botanical Garden had an exhibit this year in November called Kiku - that's Japanese for Chrysanthemum.  Turns out that our Japanese friends have spent hundreds of years developing three different styles:

Ozukuri refers to the "Thousand Bloom" Chrysanthemum.  A single bloom is cut and then re-cut again and again over a 11 to 12 month process to produce hundreds of simultaneous blossoms:

Ogiku is the term for massive single-stem blossoms.  These can grow to be up to six feet tall.  The three colours (I photoshopped the ones up top) are meant to mimic the bridles used on the emperor's horses:

The final type they showed were Kengai - or cascading - flowers.  It takes 11 months to build these waterfalls of blossoms: