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Mining the various records of plant phenology before the era of modern weather observations is an important but challenging task. We mined descriptions of plant phenology in Kanazawa, Japan, during the first half of the nineteenth century in the Kakuson Diary. We retrieved records of full bloom of 28 plant species, appearance of 31 seasonal foods, and peak leaf colouring. In particular, we found more than 10 years of records of plum, peach, cherry blossoms, udo, and bamboo shoots in spring; watermelon in summer; and persimmon, chestnut, and peak leaf colouring in autumn. The records suggest that spring phenology during 1807 to 1838 was later and autumn phenology was earlier than now. Despite spatio-temporal uncertainty in records in old diaries, we need to mine records of plant phenology in more old diaries and publish them in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eucommia ulmoides 'Hongye' is a new ornamental variety of E. ulmoides with excellent red or purple foliage. We found that E. ulmoides 'Hongye' exhibited a gradual change from green to red colour under light conditions. However, the colouring mechanism in the leaves of E. ulmoides 'Hongye' remains unclear. In this study, we compared the pigment content and leaf colour index of E. ulmoides 'Hongye' at five stages with those of E. ulmoides 'Xiaoye', which was used as the control variety. The transcriptome sequencing data of the first-period (H1, green) and fifth-period (H5, red) leaves were also analysed and compared. The corresponding gene regulation in anthocyanin-related metabolic pathways was then analysed. Physiological results indicated that the contents of flavonoids and anthocyanins in red leaves (H5) were significantly higher than those in green leaves (H1), whereas the chlorophyll content in red leaves (H5) was lower than that in green leaves (H1). Moreover, the carotenoid content did not significantly differ between the two varieties. A transcriptome analysis identified 4240 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), and 20 of these genes were found to be involved in flavonoid and anthocyanin biosynthesis pathways. The results provide a reference for further study of the leaf colouration mechanism in E. ulmoides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]