It is not called “yagurumasou,” but officially it is called “yagurumagiku.” Until recently, yagurumagiku was also referred to as “yagurumasou,” and in haiku poetry, the flower that is sung as “yagurumasou” is mostly yagurumagiku. It is said that it came to be called “yagurumagiku” because the flower resembles the yaguruma (windmill) attached to the top of a carp-shaped streamer. The names got confused because there was another flower called yagurumasou. Yagurumagiku is a flower native to Europe and belongs to the Asteraceae family. In spring, it blooms with blue, white, and pink-colored flowers. Among them, the blue-purple yagurumagiku is so beautiful that it evokes the image of the finest sapphire and is often referred to as “sahi” (the blue of the yagurumagiku flower) when describing its color. Yagurumagiku became even more famous because it was placed on the coffin of the tragic young Pharaoh Tutankhamun. It is also found in the Western tableware that Marie Antoinette, who vanished with the guillotine during the French Revolution, loved, where it is scattered as a pattern called “kobanachirashi” (scattered small flowers).

矢車草ではなく、正式には矢車菊です。最近まで矢車菊も矢車草と呼ばれていて、俳句で矢車草と歌った花は大概矢車菊です。花が鯉のぼりの柱の先につける矢車に似ていることから 「矢車菊」と呼ばれるようになったそうです。別に矢車草と言う花があったので呼び名も混同されたのでしょう。矢車菊はヨーロッパ原産の花で、キク科の一年草。春になると青や白、ピンク色の花を咲かせます。中でも青紫色の矢車菊はその美しさから、最高級のサファイアを連想させ、色味を「さひ」（ヤグルマギクの花の青）として引き合いに出されるほどです。悲劇の少年王ツタンカーメンの棺に飾られていた事で矢車菊はいっそう有名になりました。フランス革命で断頭の露と消えたマリー・アントワネットが愛好した洋食器にも『小花散らし』模様として矢車菊が散りばめられています。