tsubaki

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Passing out of Kisaradzu, and winding up to Kanozan over the narrow bridle-path, we pass the usual terraced rice-fields watered by descending rivulets, and the usual thatched and mud-walled cottages, which characterize every landscape in Japan, besides long rows of tall _tsubaki_ (camellia) trees, forty feet high and laden with their crimson and white splendors.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 29, August, 1873 Various

There is, however, a strange superstition, about tsubaki-trees; and this sacred tree of Yaegaki, in the opinion of some folk, is a rare exception to the general ghastliness of its species.

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan First Series Lafcadio Hearn 1877

Among other weird trees, the beautiful _tsubaki_ (_Camellia Japonica_) was said to be an unlucky tree; -- this was said, at least, of the red-flowering variety, the white-flowering kind having a better reputation and being prized as a rarity.

The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Lafcadio Hearn 1877

For tsubaki-trees are goblin trees, they say, and walk about at night; and there was one in the garden of a Matsue samurai which did this so much that it had to be cut down.

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan First Series Lafcadio Hearn 1877

This ancient grove -- so dense that when you first pass into its shadows out of the sun all seems black -- is composed of colossal cedars and pines, mingled with bamboo, tsubaki (Camellia Japonica), and sakaki, the sacred and mystic tree of Shinto.

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan First Series Lafcadio Hearn 1877

The reader will notice that in the following _ky [= o] ka_ -- which, as grotesques, seem to me the best in the collection -- the goblin-tsubaki is called _furu-tsubaki_, "old tsubaki."

The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Lafcadio Hearn 1877

The vegetable oil used in the old Japanese lamps used to be obtained from the nuts of the _tsubaki_.

The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Lafcadio Hearn 1877

The reader should remember that the expression "ancient tsubaki" is equivalent to the expression "goblin-tsubaki," -- the tsubaki being supposed to turn into

The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Lafcadio Hearn 1877

But in samurai homes it was a rule never to place tsubaki-flowers in an alcove _during war-time_.

The Romance of the Milky Way And Other Studies & Stories Lafcadio Hearn 1877