As I plants and flowers are ony my mind for some odd reason, I particulary noticed a piece of jewelry (I suppose) when I went to the breast cancer site. It was a gold rose, and, in my opinion, it was rather unattractive.

At least it had nothing on the real thing. Which reminded me of the following Japanese folktale:

Jade Leaves
In the land of Sung there was a man who fashioned jade into wild mulberry leaves for his lord. The leaves, which took three years to complete, were so perfectly proportioned in stalk and stem, so magnificently realized in the minutest detail, that they could not be told apart when mixed among living leaves. The state supported this craftsman for his skill.

Lieh Tzu objected, “What if heaven and earth needed three years to create a leaf? There wouldn’t be many trees. Surely the sage counts on the fruitfulness of nature rather than the ingenuity of man.”

(from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Moss Roberts.