The equinox has passed, and dusk comes earlier. By the time you go home, residential streets are already in night’s dark. This season I look forward to a sweet scent that drifts near a certain house. Yes—kinmokusei, fragrant olive. I never got to live in a house with a garden of my own, but even someone else’s tree lets me taste the season, and I am truly grateful.
If you look for kinmokusei near the Palaceside Building, it is again the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace. Enter at Hirakawamon, climb toward the Honmaru, and by “Matsu no Shibafu” lawn there is a corner wrapped in the scent. Fine, grown trees are covered in tiny orange-yellow flowers.
Happily, white ginmokusei and pale-yellow usugimokusei are blooming nearby too. The flower language of kinmokusei is “modesty,” “a noble person,” “truth.” The blooms are modest in size, but the scent is so rich that “temptation” and “intoxication” are also listed.
On the lawn, people were lying however they liked and resting. The main component of the scent is said to have a relaxing effect, so why not try aromatherapy under the blue sky?