Winter jasmine, one of the 'birthday' flowers of January 22nd annually

There is a designated birthday flower for each day of the year. This is separate to the 'hanakomon' in Japan, which is a flower crest allocated to every day of the year. For the birthday flowers by date, there is usually more than one flower per day. Take for example, today, January 22nd there are four different flowers that are the flower of January 22nd. They are Anthurium, Anemone, Guzmania and Winter Jasmine.

Of the four I see two of them quite regularly in Japan - Anemone and Winter Jasmine. However, Anemone doesn't actually bloom in January. It usually starts to bloom around February. Moreover, Anthurium and Guzmania, though it may seem strange, don't bloom until May! But there is one flower that is usually in bloom on its designated birthday flower day; winter jasmine.

Winter Jasmine blooms from around January to March in Japan. It looks quite like wintersweet (roubai) and has a similar name in Japanese: 'Oubai'. Apart from being the birth flower of January 22nd, it is also the birthday flower for February 20th and March 6th too. In my experience, you can often see oubai on the grounds of temples. The featured photo was taken at a temple in Saitama Prefecture.

Do you know what the flower of your birth date is? Stay tuned to find out!