Osmanthus Saga 2

Copyright Julie Vaux 2014 

The ancient Chinese may have developed a vast number of herbal medicines but they seem to have had a very inconsistent method of distinguishing and naming trees of various species. The name changed from characters that could be also read as noble tree flower to characters that literally read tree  = tree+rhinoceros to a modern form that can also mean scrambled eggs because of comparisons of beaten eggs to the yellow and white flowers.

If anyone has tried sweet olive jams or sweets could you let us know what they taste like? Possibly I may have had some without realising it?  Are they ever used to fill mochi or wagashi?

The Osmanthus Saga Intro

#Osmanthus is a flowering shrub / tree many people take for granted ....

Join this miniseries of posts to find out about the many names and uses of osmanthus and the strange story of the Chinese hanzi used which tells us something about the Chinese language and tends to support my theory about bored Han scribes playing with characters!