ホモテナシ

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茶花

Buddhism started practise of offering flowers, initially (600 AD) two flowers to the left of the altar and two candles to the right; then in 室町 just one each.
Priests started to make them just for fun (in the very large room, obviously, so the arrangements themselves were quite large and the 花入 used obviously all Chinese).
In XVI then rooms and thus flower containers became smaller, with one or two blossoms being used

利休: Cut fresh green bamboo for a vase, pour clear water into it and, with pure heart, put in a fresh flower.
Naosuke: Don't use rare and unusual flowers. Go outside, look for a flower, cut it.
Naosuke: Flowers capture 一期一会: A flower only lasts for a brief moment.

Arrangement in the 床

	center hook	hook on 床柱
small room	100 cm	150 cm
big room	120 cm	180 cm

Arrangement of the flower

しゅこ: No conscious effort when arranging flowers
利休: Pick one or two cuttings of the same flower, maybe add some 'soft fullness'
- According to 南方録 one blossom for the small, two for the big room.
利休: 花は　の　に　ある　よ　に「The flower should be as it is in the field」

利休: In 1567 did a 茶事 where he had the guests return after 中立 to find an empty flower vase with some water in it. 利休 explained to his guests to imagine the flower; and CQ41 describes this as the ultimate 茶花.

Generally, pick flowers that are a little closed, if you can find them (Larry 23)
利休 chose short-lived flowers, and forbade the use of long-lived, garish or strongly-smelling flowers such as sweet daphne (Seidelblast), mountain anise (Anis-Duftnessel or Riesenysop), cockscomb; patrinia, pomegranate, candock and marigold (CQ41).
Morning glory a bit frowned upon in Urasenke because of the story of 利休 and 秀吉, but here it's a perfectly fine flower (Larry 23)
Narcissus, however, works well.

haru no no ni sumire tsumi ni to koshi ware zo
no o natsukashimi hito-yo ne ni keru

I came to the filed to pick violets / but I loved the field so much I've slept there all night; from Yamabe-no-Akihito, ~700 AD