Bang! Shaboom! Bip-bip-bip-bip-bip-BOOM! Some Spider Chrysanthemums are called “Firecrackers” for good reason…
But did you know that some fireworks are also called…Chrysanthemums!
Yes! In the words of one manufacturer, a “Chrysanthemum” shell consists of two or three concentric exploding spheres. And the resemblance, both in the heavens and on earth, is quite amazing.
As I developed this photograph, it struck me this can’t be coincidence.
After all, both Chrysanthemum flowers and their firework namesakes were cultivated many centuries ago in China.
Were they intentionally developed to resemble each other? Call me unscientific, but it seems inescapable. Chrysanthemum flowers 🌺 and sha-booms 🧨 must have intertwining origins.
Perhaps it would provide a worthy doctoral thesis for somebody with a better command of Mandarin than yours truly? Or maybe it’s already written? Whatever…
But, from now on, whenever I see a bed of Fireworks Chrysanthemums, I’ll smile and think of a garden in the Forbidden City—or a fire-lit night sky above the Great Wall—many centuries ago.
