Grass

One of the iconic sights of Japanese autumn are hillsides covered in silvery expanses of susuki grass (Japanese pampas). For hundreds of years, poets have been conjuring images of susuki fields whispering under the harvest moon.

But all is not well in susuki's wild gardens. Almost everywhere you see it nowadays, it is struggling with a foreign interloper called Seitaka-awadachi-sou (tall foam-whipping plant), which found its way into Japan from America during the last century and likes exactly the same conditions.



Just one of the poems featuring susuki:

Shinshu no
Susuki ni hashiru
Nami no Kage

It was written by Kato Shuson in 1943 for a friend who was going off to fight in the increasingly desperate looking Second World War.

Late autumn,
wind blows through susuki grass,
like the shade of waves.

(Rights reserved by Ark on the second pic)