Aster amellus Aster amellus Aster amellus, the European Michaelmas-daisy, is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus "Aster", belonging to the Asteraceae family. In the language of flowers, the Michaelmas-daisy symbolizes a farewell or a departure. The genus name ("Aster") comes from the Greek and means "star-shaped flower." The specific name ("amellus") is first used in the Georgics (Book IV, 271-280), a poem of the Latin poet Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC - 19 BC), but the etymology is obscure and uncertain. "Aster amellus" reaches on average a height of . The stem is erect and branched, the leaves are dark green.
When My Name Was Keoko adopt new names in Japanese to reflect the new law put out by the Japanese government. Sun-hee's family chooses the last name of "Kaneyama" for the family because, when translated, it means geumsan, a county in South Korea. For their first names, each family member picks a random letter in the Japanese alphabet that will be the first letter of their name. Sun-hee chose the letter K and Tae-yul chose N, so their names became Kaneyama Keoko and Kaneyama Nobuo. As the book progresses the story switches between Sun-hee/Keoko's time in school with her friend Tomo and interest in Japanese