Birth flower for June 14
Japanese stewartia
Meaning: loveliness, fleeting beauty
Each stewartia flower opens in the morning and drops whole by evening. Japanese temples often plant it as the sara tree, the sal tree under which the Buddha died, and it brings to mind the opening of The Tale of the Heike, about how all things pass. The true sal of the scriptures is a tropical tree, but this gentle stand-in has become a symbol of fleeting beauty.