Japanese plum ume: the tree from the story of a disgraced minister
The Japanese plum, ume, Prunus mume, is a deciduous tree native to China: it blooms in late winter before the leaves appear, and its fruit is hard and sour — it is not eaten raw. The word "ume" changed its sound three times: in the Nara period it was "ume", in the Middle Ages "mume", and then back to "ume". A legend about the minister Sugawara no Michizane, exiled from the capital, is tied to the tree, and the word 梅雨 is the name of the rainy season.
Ume is better known for what is made from it — but it all began with a tree that blooms earlier than the rest and is grown in separate cultivars just for its blossoms. Let's look at why its name changed sound over the history of the language, what the name of the rainy season has to do with it, how the plum is connected to a disgraced ninth-century courtier, and why one tree of a single cultivar is not enough in an orchard for a harvest.
The tree whose fruit is not eaten raw
Ume, Prunus mume, is a deciduous tree brought to Japan from China; in the wild it comes from the central regions of the country. Ume blooms in late winter, before the leaves appear — earlier than almost all other fruit trees in the country. Its fruit is hard and sour, and unripe it is not eaten raw: only processed fruit is eaten — salted, steeped in alcohol, or in syrup.
| Group | Japanese name | What distinguishes it |
|---|---|---|
| Flowering cultivars | 花梅 | grown for their blossoms — gardens, groves, shrine courtyards |
| Fruiting cultivars | 実梅 | grown for the harvest — salted, steeped in alcohol, dried |
| Wild plum line | 野梅系 | closest to the wild ancestor, usually white or pale pink flowers |
| "Scarlet plum" line | 緋梅系 | bright red and crimson flowers, often with a reddish tint to the wood |
About three hundred cultivars and pollination neighbors
The exact number of cultivars depends on the source: about three hundred is most often cited, though some counts give more. Many cultivars do not self-pollinate — strong self-incompatibility — so one cultivar alone is not enough in an orchard for a harvest: one or two more cultivars are planted nearby as pollinators, with a slightly different genetic makeup and a similar flowering time.
梅 and the word that changed its sound three times
梅 — значение: ume (tree), ume (fruit) — онъёми: バイ — кунъёми: うめ — 10 штрих(ов). 梅 — "ume": on the left is the radical 木 "tree", on the right a phonetic component related to the character 毎 "each" — the same one as in 毎日 "every day". The word itself did not always sound the same: the meaning and the spelling held, but over the centuries the pronunciation changed and then changed back.
| Japanese | Reading | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| 梅 | ume · ume | Ume — the tree and its fruit |
| 梅の花 | ume no hana · ume no hana | Ume blossom |
| 梅雨 | tsuyu · tsuyu | Rainy season, literally "plum rain" |
| 梅林 | umebayashi · umebayashi | Plum grove |
| 飛梅 | tobiume · tobiume | "Flying plum" — the legendary tree at Dazaifu Tenmangu |
| 松竹梅 | shōchikubai · shōchikubai | Pine, bamboo, and plum — the New Year trio of plants |
How "ume" changed its sound three times
In the Nara period the tree was called "ume"; in the Middle Ages, beginning in the insei era, the sound shifted to "mume", and then returned to "ume" — which is what it is called today. Even the Latin scientific name Prunus mume preserves not the current pronunciation but that older one: European botanists recorded the name according to the Japanese sound of their time, and in science it has remained forever.
The rain is called "plum" rain, 梅雨, because the season falls at the time when the ume fruit ripens — this is the most common explanation for the choice of characters. The reading of the word itself, つゆ (tsuyu), is more complicated: it has its own history, not directly connected to the plum — by one account, from the verb "to spoil, to mold" in the rain, by another, from the ordinary word "dew". The same characters 梅雨 also have a second, more formal reading, ばいう (baiu), used, for example, by weather forecasters.
Write 梅 along the guides — the character for ume, whose sound changed throughout Japanese history.
Tenjin, resistance to cold, and the New Year trio of plants
In Japan, ume came to signify resilience: the tree blooms when it is still cold outside, and this was seen as an image of a character that does not give up before its time. Scholarship and knowledge are linked to ume through the god Tenjin — a cult that formed around a real person, the disgraced courtier Sugawara no Michizane. And in New Year symbolism, ume is part of the trio "pine, bamboo, plum", 松竹梅: this combination was borrowed from China, where it was called the "three friends of the cold season", 歳寒三友 — plants that do not wither in winter.
The disgraced minister and the flying plum
In 901, the courtier Sugawara no Michizane was exiled from the capital to Dazaifu on Kyushu after a political defeat. Leaving his home, he is said to have addressed his beloved plum tree with a poem — and, according to legend, the tree so longed for its master that it flew after him in a single night; this tree is called 飛梅 (tobiume), the "flying plum". The earliest known mention of this story in sources dates to 1219, more than three centuries after the events themselves — this is a legend that took shape over time, not a record by an eyewitness.
Dazaifu, Kitano Tenmangu, and plum groves
The most famous places to view ume blossoms are connected to Tenmangu shrines: Dazaifu on Kyushu, where that very 飛梅 tree grows, and Kitano in Kyoto, where the old plum garden "Hanano-niwa" was restored in 2022. Today about six thousand ume trees of roughly two hundred cultivars grow at the Dazaifu shrine — one of the country's main places for viewing this particular tree. Ume blooms from February to March depending on latitude: earlier in the south, later in the north.
Where the ume fruit goes
The harvest goes along several processing paths: some fruit is salted, some is steeped in alcohol with sugar, some is dried or turned into syrup. From the same tree come products that taste nothing alike — and each has its own technology and its own season.
FAQ
- What is the Japanese plum?
- Ume, Prunus mume, is a deciduous tree native to China that has grown in Japan since ancient times. It blooms in late winter before the leaves appear, its fruit is hard and sour, and it is not eaten raw or unripe — only processed fruit is eaten: salted, steeped in alcohol, or dried.
- How is the Japanese plum different from an ordinary plum?
- It is a separate species, Prunus mume, not a variety of the familiar plum Prunus domestica: a different range, a different taste and firmness of fruit, a different flowering season — long before the leaves appear. Botanically, ume is equally related to both the plum and the apricot, since all three plants belong to the same genus Prunus, but they do not coincide with one another.
- When does the Japanese plum bloom?
- From February to March depending on latitude: earlier in the south of the country, later in the north, and always before the leaves appear on the branches. It is almost the first flowering tree of the Japanese calendar — long before most other fruit crops.
- How is "Japanese plum" written in Japanese?
- 梅, read うめ (ume). The word changed its sound over history: in the Nara period it was "ume", in the Middle Ages "mume", and then the pronunciation returned to "ume". The Latin scientific name of the tree, Prunus mume, still preserves that medieval sound.
- Why is the rainy season in Japan called plum rain?
- The characters 梅雨 were chosen because the rainy season falls at the time when the ume fruit ripens — this is the most common explanation for the choice of characters. The reading of the word itself, つゆ (tsuyu), however, is not directly tied to the plum: it has a separate history, going back either to the word "dew" or to the verb "to spoil" in the rain.
- Can you eat the fruit of the Japanese plum?
- Raw and unripe — no, such fruit is not eaten. But processed — yes: it is salted, sun-dried, steeped in alcohol with sugar, or boiled into syrup. Each method produces a completely different-tasting product from the same tree.
Sources
Updated: 2026-09-22