TOKYO –
Empress Masako harvested wild silk cocoons on the Imperial Palace on July 9, persevering with the long-standing sericulture custom handed down by means of generations of empresses for the reason that Meiji period.
The empress visited the Momijiyama Imperial Cocoonery throughout the palace grounds, the place she collected cocoons of the wild silkworm often known as “tensan.”
The outdoor-reared silkworms hatched from eggs that the empress hooked up to Japanese paper in May 2026 along with Emperor Naruhito and Princess Aiko. The paper was wrapped round branches of sawtooth oak bushes, the place the larvae later spun their distinctive shiny inexperienced cocoons.
As she fastidiously reduce branches bearing the cocoons with pruning shears, the empress requested, “When did these cocoons form?” Looking at their vivid colour, she remarked, “They’re beautiful, such a lovely green.”
Sericulture on the Imperial Palace has been carried on by successive empresses for the reason that Meiji interval. This 12 months marks the seventh time Empress Masako has overseen the work, and it’s the first time that work involving tensan silkworms has been publicly proven throughout the Reiwa period.
Source: FNN