Golden Petals

Whenever Chinese talk about flowers, it's rare that they don't mention a flower which blooms all year round but especially in autumn. It's the chrysanthemum, which has been cultivated as a herb as far back as 1500 BC. The name Chrysanthemum comes from two Greek words: "chrysos" meaning gold and "anthemon" meaning flower. As its name implies, it is mostly golden in color.

It may be multilayer, with wavy petals, like this one.

Or it may have a triple layer of dagger like petals

or it may have long strip like petals, like this one.

It may be light yellow.

stronger yellow

opening out more

and may be yellow with a darker "heart"




Or orange with a brown "heart"

or orange color with a yellow "heart"

It may have a single layer of creamy  petals

It may have upright petals in yellow

Another one even more upright.

It may have more upright petals in orange

It may have a different type of heart



Their shape keeps changing as they open up

Some have curled petals

Curled petals opening out.

The heart of another beautiful chrysanthemum.

The full flower.

According to the international classification system, there are a total of 13 forms according to the way the flower blooms and the way the ray florets and the disk florets are arranged. But whatever form they may have, I can never adequately describe how much joy they gave me at the last flower show where these photos were taken.