Fall flowers: water hyacinth

Water hyacinth is a flower you can see in fall, mainly the month of September. But it also blooms in August. It often starts to bloom around, or just before, the middle of August. However, there are places were you can see it in bloom from earlier in summer, such as Kazo City in Saitama Prefecture where water hyacinth blooms for about four months. 

Water hyacinth is not native to Japan. It was imported from South America more than a hundred years ago, for ornamental purposes. However, as it is an invasive plant, there aren't that many places they grow it. It is a water plant that can be grown in lakes, ponds, marshes, even rice fields. The display I went to see today, pictured with the frog, is grown in the latter. Reportedly there are some benefits to growing it in rice fields as it has some cleaning properties. 

In Japanese water hyacinth is called "Hotei Aoi". Hotei is after my favorite of the seven lucky Gods, Hoteison! What I was told is that the flower looks  like Hoteison's stomach. Personally I can't see the resemblance at all! I believe the Aoi of Hotei Aoi is the word for Hollyhock in Japanese. The scientific name was Eichhornia crassipes but they changed it to Pontederia crassipes. From what I can tell, that was a recent change.

Here in Saitama I only know of three places that have a water hyacinth display. The aforementioned display in Kazo is the most famous. But you can also see water hyacinth at Gyoda Suijo Park and Shimoyatsubayashi flower picking fields. The latter is beside the picking fields, but as far as I know you can't pick the water hyacinth. I imagine they'd be quite hard to pick anyway, as they have a very thick stem. 

Have you any water hyacinth flower displays in your prefecture?