夏を代表する花、「向日葵」。この漢字が読めますか？ ヒントは、太陽のような黄色の花ですよ。
そう、「ひまわり」です。
漢字の意味を一文字ずつ説明しましょう。「向」は「向く」、つまり「ある方向を見る」という意味です。「日」は言うまでもなく「太陽」ですね。「葵」は「アオイ」という花の種類を表わしていますが、ひまわりは植物学的にはキク科の花です。
ひまわりの特性として、花が常に太陽の方を向いていることが挙げられます。観察していると、朝のうちは東にある太陽に向かって咲いているひまわりは、お昼頃に頭上に移動した太陽を追いかけるように南を向き、午後には西に傾く太陽と同じように花を西側に傾けるのです。漢字は、このひまわりの動きに着目して用いられているのですね。
「向日葵は 金の油を 身にあびて ゆらりと高し 日のちひ（い）ささよ」という短歌は前田夕暮（まえだゆうぐれ）という人の作品ですが、見事な黄色の花はまるで金色の油を浴びているようです。また、高さが約２メートルにもなるため、見上げていると太陽が小さく見えるほどの迫力です。
ちなみに向日葵の花言葉は「熱愛」「光輝」「あなただけを見つめている」。鮮やかな花にふさわしい情熱的なことばが当てられています。
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“向日葵” This is the kanji for a well known summer flower, but can you read it?
One hint is that this flower is yellow and it looks like the sun. That’s right! This is the kanji compound for ‘himawari,’ or sunflower.
Lets take a look at each of the characters individually. The first character “向” is from the verb ‘muku’ (向く) which means to face or to look in one particular direction. “日” as many of you probably know, means the sun.The character “葵” is pronounced ‘aoi’ and describes a type of flower called hollyhock. Sunflowers, however are botanically technically a flower of the Asteraceae family.
One unique characteristic of sunflowers is that their blooms are always facing toward the sun. If you observe a sunflower throughout the course of a day, in the morning the blooms face toward the sun rising in the east. But, around midday the flowers face south as if chasing the sun that is right above their heads. Then, in the evening the flowers track the sun as it sinks into the west. The kanji combination seems to have been conceived with the sunflower’s movements during the day in mind.
“The sunflower bathes its flesh in golden oil, languidly craning up so high – oh how small the sun”
This is a tanka poem by Yugure Maeda that depicts a splendid yellow flower that almost seems bathed in golden oil. And at a height of about 2 meters, from below the sunflower’s dynamic presence makes even the sun look small.
And by the way, the ‘hana kotoba’ (language of flowers) meanings attributed to sunflowers are ‘passionate love,’ ‘radiance’ and one ‘only having eyes’ for the flower’s recipient. What fittingly passionate words for such a brilliant flower!
