A Greek myth tells of the beautiful youth Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite, who was killed by a wild boar while hunting. A flower growing on the spot where he fell was stained crimson by his blood and was named Adonis aestivalis.

This red, summer annual of the Mediterranean area has a cousin in Japan, a yellow perennial (Adonis amurensis) that blooms in the winter month of February -- fukujuso. It is an auspicious plant for the New Year, one reason being the two kanji characters that make up its name -- fuku for wealth and ju for happiness.

The Ainu also have a name for this flower, kunaw, and a similar legend. According to this, a beautiful young goddess who lived in lower heaven fled from an arranged marriage with the fur-bearing sable, a noble animal-god in higher heaven. The runaway bride was ultimately found by her bridegroom, hiding in a forlorn grass field. Furious, the sable trampled her down, saying: "You shall be punished for your disobedience to your father. I am going to change you into a flower so you shall never return to heaven." And indeed, a lovely flower bloomed there.

Liking both cool areas and sunshine, fukujuso grow wild on the warmer fringes of deciduous forests that have shed their leaves in winter. A good place to enjoy their rustic charm is the Akatsuka Botanical Garden in Itabashi Ward of northern Tokyo.

Created around a small hill, the garden offers a great variety of seasonal flowers in a setting reminiscent of a rural village, which this whole area was until recently.

Use the Tobu Tojo Line from Ikebukuro or the Yurakucho subway line bound for Kawagoe, get off at Shimo Akatsuka (Tojo Line) or Eidan Akatsuka (Yurakucho Line, Exit 3). Exiting from either station, make a U-turn left along a shopping street, Akatsuka Chuo-dori. You might enjoy browsing in some shops, including a good bakery on your left.

Past the cream-colored school building on your right, visit Shogetsu-in on the other side of the large intersection. Important in local history, this Buddhist temple prospered from the middle of the 15th century as the family temple of the Chibas, a warrior clan that settled here after being forced out of the present-day Chiba Prefecture.

In 1591, Tokugawa Ieyasu, arriving in Edo, gave his authorization to the temple and donated the estate on which it stands today. In the 19th century, when tensions were high around the coasts of Japan with incursions into its waters by foreign ships, the temple became the site of a military demonstration in 1841, led by Takashima Shuhan.

Takashima, a Nagasaki expert in Western weapons, appealed strongly to the shogun of the time to reinforce Japan's defense in the wake of the outbreak of the Opium War in 1840. With the shogun's sanction, he demonstrated the firing of four cannons and 50 rifles by 100 men he had trained. A bronze statue inside the second roofed gate commemorates this historic event. The site of the military maneuver on the flood plain of the Arakawa, 2 km north, is now home to a huge modern apartment complex named after him, Takashima-daira.

Leaving the temple by the first roofed gate, make a U-turn right to continue on the same road as before. At the noodle restaurant Mankichitei, (open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; closed Thursday) to the right of the stoplight, you may sample their hand-rolled buckwheat (soba) noodles with sesame-flavored sauce (goma).

Another interesting temple, Joren-ji, stands around the second corner to the left after the stoplight. For now, however, go to the Akatsuka Botanical Garden (open 9 a.m.-4 p.m., closed Dec. 28-Jan. 4), marked by slender tulip trees by the gate. Fukujuso grows along the left-hand path at the foot of a large hackberry and also in the cherry tree section. The coppices now bare, the sun-loving dwarf flowers poke their heads up from under the fallen leaves and fling open their brilliantly colored petals to bask in the sunshine.

Though they have a faint flush of green at first, their golden hue gradually deepens over several days. The pale-green bottom leaves resemble sheaths, through which feathery dark-green leaves shoot up, growing taller after the flowers fall. The peak of flowering is usually in the middle of February.

Passing by camellia bushes in bloom, ascend to the benches on the open hilltop, where you can enjoy a rest in the sunshine. More fukujuso bloom in the nearby Manyoshu Garden, where a collection of plants mentioned in the Manyoshu, an eighth-century anthology of poems after which the garden is named, are planted. A delicately sweet fragrance wafting on the air will then guide you to a plum garden and on to a bamboo garden where different styles of bamboo fencing are exhibited.

Exiting the botanical garden, walk into Joren-ji, which stands on the site of the medieval Akatsuka Fortress founded by the Chiba clan. The temple was relocated here in 1973 from the place of its 14th-century foundation 7 km east, owing to the construction of an expressway.

The 13-meter-high seated bronze Buddha is new, having been erected in the wake of the move, but it is the third largest such statue after those in Nara and Kamakura. More interesting are the old stone statues to its left, especially the Demon of Patience at the end of a cobbled path.

Leaving Joren-ji from its side gate and going around behind it, take a descending path at the far end of a bamboo thicket and turn right at the bottom. A short detour to the left ascends into a wooded area and another, larger plum garden.

An open grass field beyond it is the site of the former main quarter of the Akatsuka Fortress. To return to the station, however, turn right at the stoplight ahead. A trickling waterfall in a shady cliff nearby is where local villagers on a pilgrimage to Mount Fuji used to perform ablutions in what used to be a much fiercer cascade at the start of their journey. At the intersection of Shogetsu-in, you can catch a bus to Narimasu Station on the Tojo Line.