Walk Through a Sea of Red Spider Lilies (彼岸花) in Japan
Every autumn, around the September equinox, Japan's riverbanks and forest floors ignite in crimson as millions of red spider lilies bloom at once. The greatest display is Kinchakuda Manjushage Park in Hidaka, Saitama, about an hour from Tokyo, where some five million flowers carpet a riverside grove. Winding paths lead you straight through the red, under filtered sunlight, for as far as you can see.
Few flowers carry a story like this one. In Asian legend, the red spider lily blooms along the road to the underworld, on the banks of the River of Oblivion, guiding souls to the afterlife. Its flowers and leaves never meet: the crimson blooms rise on bare stems, and only after they wither do the leaves appear. They say the flower spirit Manju (曼珠) and the leaf spirit Shahua (沙华) were lovers cursed to share one plant yet never see each other, blooming a thousand years apart. And the show itself is brutally short, about ten days around peak each autumn, usually mid-September to early October. Miss it and you wait a year.