Somei Yoshino is the most numerous cherry tree type in Japan often used as ornamental plant because of its size. The pale pink and white flowers are fragrant and appears intense as fresh leaves do not emerge until after the peak of the flowering season.
– Average blooming period in Tokyo: early April
– hybrid cherry of between Prunus speciosa (Oshima zakura) as father plant and Prunus pendula f. ascendens (Edo higan) as mother
– small, deciduous tree that grows 5 to 12 meters tall
– flowers are fragrant, grows in clusters of five or six together, and with white or pale pink petals
From the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji period, gardeners and craftsman who made the village at Somei in Edo (now Komagome, Toshima ward, Tokyo) grew someiyoshino. They first offered them as Yoshinozakura, but in 1900, they were renamed someiyoshino. This is sometimes rendered as ‘Somei-Yoshino’.
The Yoshino cherry was introduced to Europe and North America in 1902.The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C., commemorating the 1912 gift of Japanese cherry trees from Tokyo to the city of Washington. Also, several of 2,000 Japanese cherry trees given to the citizens of Toronto by the citizens of Tokyo in 1959 were planted in High Park. They’re all clone from a single tree, and propagated by grafting to all over the world.
