Page 17 - Растения Сахалинской области в легендах и мифах

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Habenaria yezoensis

(Habenaria ye-zoensis H. Hara)

Perennial herb up to 50 cm tall, with a straight
stem and ellipsoidal root tuber. Simple whole
leaves, 6–7 in number, up to 11 cm long and 0.6
cm wide, linear-lanceolate, with a sharp apex, with
3 veins, embracing. Flowers are zygomorphic, 2–8
in number, white, in a loose raceme up to 10 cm
long. Spur is up to 12 mm long, greenish, curved
forward, thickened at the top.
A rare species in the flora of Russia, known from
literary data only for Kunashir Island. There is no
material in Russian herbaria. Outside Russia it is
distributed on the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu
in Japan.

A little shepherd sat in a meadow and was sad that he would never
become a samurai, a great warrior. And he reasoned that life was
not arranged correctly. Why some are born rich, and even if they
don’t want to, they become samurai. Others, born in poverty, are
doomed to work hard, and they will never become a samurai. And
then he was distracted from his thoughts when he saw flying white
herons. They were so good that the boy forgot all his sorrow. He sat
and, without taking his eyes off, looked at the sky. And when the birds
were not visible, the shepherdess’s gaze dropped to the grass. And
then he noticed a white flower, miraculously similar to the beautiful
white birds that just soared in the sky. The shepherd dug a flower and
planted it in his garden by the house to admire it, because it looked
so much like soaring egrets. And the shepherd boy understood the
simple truth that Buddha himself told him: “Everything in this world
comes, like the flight of these birds, only beauty is eternal. Look at
the flower and remember it!»

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