A
cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus
Prunus, particularly the Japanese Cherry,
Prunus serrulata, which is sometimes called
sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Many of the varieties that have been cultivated for ornamental use do
not produce fruit. Edible cherries generally come from cultivars of the
related species
Prunus avium and
Prunus cerasus.
Flower viewing
"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming
sakura or
ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the
Nara Period (710–794) when it was
ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the
Heian Period (794–1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and
hanami was synonymous with
sakura.
From then on, in both
waka and
haiku, "flowers"
(花 hana) meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to
samurai society and, by the
Edo period, to the common people as well.
Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the
sakura trees, people had lunch and drank
sake in cheerful feasts.
Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the
sakura zensen (
cherry blossom front)
as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer
weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news
programs. The blossoming begins in
Okinawa in January and typically reaches
Kyoto
and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds
into areas at the higher altitudes and northward, arriving in
Hokkaidō
a few weeks later. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and
turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and
friends to hold flower-viewing parties.
Hanami festivals
celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossom and for many are a chance to
relax and enjoy the beautiful view. The custom of
hanami dates back many centuries in Japan: the eighth-century chronicle
Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) records
hanami festivals being held as early as the third century CE.
Most Japanese schools and public buildings have cherry blossom trees
outside of them. Since the fiscal and school year both begin in April,
in many parts of
Honshū, the first day of work or school coincides with the cherry blossom season.
The Japan Cherry Blossom Association developed a list of Japan's Top 100 Cherry Blossom Spots
with at least one location in every prefecture.
Symbolism
In Japan, cherry blossoms also symbolize clouds due to their nature of blooming
en masse, besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life,
an aspect of Japanese cultural tradition that is often associated with Buddhistic influence,
and which is embodied in the concept of
mono no aware.
The association of the cherry blossom with
mono no aware dates back to 18th-century scholar
Motoori Norinaga.
The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality;
for this reason, cherry blossoms are richly symbolic, and have been utilized often in
Japanese art,
manga,
anime, and film, as well as at musical performances for ambient effect. There is at least one popular
folk song, originally meant for the
shakuhachi (bamboo flute), titled "
Sakura", and several
pop songs. The flower is also represented on all manner of consumer goods in Japan, including
kimono, stationery, and
dishware.
The
Sakurakai or Cherry Blossom Society was the name chosen by young officers within the
Imperial Japanese Army in September 1930 for their secret society established with the goal of reorganizing the state along
totalitarian militaristic lines, via a military coup d'état if necessary.
During World War II, the cherry blossom was used to motivate the
Japanese people, to stoke nationalism and militarism among the populace.
Even prior to the war, they were used in propaganda to inspire
"Japanese spirit," as in the "Song of Young Japan," exulting in
"warriors" who were "ready like the myriad cherry blossoms to scatter."
In 1932,
Akiko Yosano's poetry urged Japanese soldiers to endure sufferings in China and compared the dead soldiers to cherry blossoms.
Arguments that the plans for the
Battle of Leyte Gulf,
involving all Japanese ships, would expose Japan to serious danger if
they failed, were countered with the plea that the Navy be permitted to
"bloom as flowers of death."
The last message of the forces on
Peleliu was "Sakura, Sakura" — cherry blossoms.
Japanese pilots would paint them on the sides of their planes before
embarking on a suicide mission, or even take branches of the trees with
them on their missions.
A cherry blossom painted on the side of the bomber symbolized the intensity and ephemerality of life;
in this way, the aesthetic association was altered such that falling
cherry petals came to represent the sacrifice of youth in suicide
missions to honor the emperor.
The first
kamikaze unit had a subunit called
Yamazakura or wild cherry blossom.
The government even encouraged the people to believe that the souls of downed warriors were reincarnated in the blossoms.
In its colonial enterprises, imperial Japan often planted cherry
trees as a means of "claiming occupied territory as Japanese space".
Cherry blossoms are a prevalent symbol in
Irezumi,
the traditional art of Japanese tattoos. In tattoo art, cherry blossoms
are often combined with other classic Japanese symbols like koi fish,
dragons or tigers.
Australia
Panoramic view from the Symbolic Mountain at the
Japanese Gardens. The view takes in the gardens and the plains of the
Cowra district across to the nearby mountains.
During World War II, a
prisoner of war (POW) camp near the town of
Cowra in New South Wales, Australia was the site of one of the largest
prison escapes of the war, on 5 August 1944. During the
Cowra breakout
and subsequent rounding up of POWs, four Australian soldiers and 231
Japanese soldiers died and 108 prisoners were wounded. The Japanese War
Cemetery holding the dead from the Breakout was tended to after WWII by
members of the Cowra
RSL and ceded to Japan in 1963. In 1971 the Cowra Tourism Development decided to celebrate this link to Japan, and proposed a
Japanese Garden
for the town. The Japanese government agreed to support this
development as a sign of thanks for the respectful treatment of their
war dead; the development also received funding from the Australian
government and private entities.
The garden was designed by
Ken Nakajima
(1914–2000), a world-renowned designer of Japanese gardens at the time.
The first stage was opened in 1979, with a second stage opened in 1986.
The gardens were designed in the style of the
Edo period and are a
kaiyū-shiki
or strolling garden. They are designed to show all of the landscape
types of Japan. At five hectares (12 acres), the Cowra Japanese Garden
is the largest Japanese garden in the
Southern Hemisphere. An annual cherry blossom festival is a major event in Cowra's tourism calendar and is held in the gardens during September.
Brazil
With the
Japanese diaspora to Brazil, many immigrants brought
seedlings of cherry trees. In
São Paulo State,
home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, it is common to
find the trees in Japan related facilities and some homes, usually of
the cultivars
Prunus serrulata 'Yukiwari' and
Prunus serrulata var.
lannesiana 'Himalaya'. In the
Parana State (in
southern Brazil), many cities received many of these immigrants, who planted the trees, as in
Apucarana,
Maringá,
Cascavel and especially in the capital city of
Curitiba.
In the
capital city of Parana,
the first seedlings were taken by Japanese immigrants in the first half
of the 20th century, but began to be planted in large quantities from
the 1990s, with the opening of the
Botanical Garden of Curitiba.
Now the seedlings are produced by the city and used in
afforestation of streets and
squares – as in the Japanese Square, where have more than 30 cherry trees around the square sent by the
Japanese Empire to Curitiba.
Canada
Vancouver, BC is famous for its thousands of cherry trees (estimated 50,000) lining many streets and in many parks, including
Queen Elizabeth Park and
Stanley Park. Vancouver holds the
Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival every year.
With multiple varieties and a temperate climate, they begin to bloom in February yearly and peak in April.
High Park
in Toronto, Ontario features many Somei-Yoshino cherry trees (the
earliest species to bloom and much loved by the Japanese for their
fluffy white flowers) that were given to Toronto by Japan in 1959.
Through the Sakura Project, the Japanese Consulate donated a further 34
cherry trees to
High Park in 2001, plus cherry trees to various other locations like
Exhibition Place,
McMaster University,
York University (near Calumet College and on Ottawa Road near McLaughlin College) and the
University of Toronto's main (next to Robarts Library) and Scarborough campuses. Niagara Falls also has many near the Falls itself.
Royal Botanical Gardens
in Burlington and Hamilton was also the recipient of a number of
Somei-Yoshino cherry trees that were donated by the Consulate-General of
Japan in Toronto as part of the Sakura Project. The trees are located
in the Arboretum and the Rock Garden and were planted to celebrate the
continual strengthening of friendship between Japan and Canada. Peak
bloom time at Royal Botanical Gardens is normally around the last week
of April or the first week of May.
China
Cherry trees naturally grow in the middle northern or southern part
of China, the area nearby the sea. However, the most famous cherry
blossom parks in China reflect Japan's brief occupation of parts of
China during the first half of the 20th century or the donation from
Japan thereafter:
Germany
The cherry blossom is a major tourist attraction in Germany's
Altes Land orchard region. The largest Hanami in Germany, in
Hamburg, with Japanese-style fireworks, organized by the German-Japanese society, draws tens of thousands spectators every spring.
The Netherlands
In the year 2000, the Japan Women's Club (JWC) donated 400 cherry blossom trees to the city of
Amstelveen. The trees have been planted in the Cherry blossom park in the
Amsterdamse Bos. A special detail is that every tree has a name — 200 trees have female Japanese names, 200 trees have female Dutch names.
South Korea
Watching of cherry blossom was introduced to Korea during Japanese rule.
The festivals continued even after the Japanese surrendered in WWII,
but have been contentious, and many cherry trees have been destroyed
because they were seen as symbols of the occupation.
However, there has been considerable confusion about the origin of the
cultivated Japanese cherry trees and the differences between them and
native Korean trees (see the Origin debates section in
Prunus × yedoensis for the details).
Certain trees at
Seoul's
Gyeongbok Palace were cut down to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Japanese surrender in World War II.
Although Cherry blossoms are already indigenous to Korea, Japan had
planted trees on sacred and provocative locations in the Palace.
[citation needed]
Once the offending trees were cut down the festival continued with the
indigenous trees. The cherry blossom festival at Gyeongbok Palace is one
of a number of such festivals across Korea and is prominently
advertised to tourists.
[citation needed]
Turkey
In 2005, Japanese cherry trees were presented by Japan to the Nezahat Gokyigit Botanical Garden in
Istanbul, Turkey. Each tree represents one sailor of
Ertugrul Frigate
which was the a famous frigate of the Ottoman/Turkish navy. She had
encountered a typhoon on the way back from a goodwill visit to Japan in
1890. That heavy weather condition caused her to sink. That disaster
resulted with unfortunate loss of 587 Ottoman/Turkish sailors. That
unfortunate occurrence is being remembered in every anniversary. The
Japanese Cherry Trees represent memory of those passed away and provide
remembrance.
United Kingdom
Batsford Arboretum in
Gloucestershire (
England), holds the national collection of Japanese village cherries, sato-sakura group.
Keele University in
Staffordshire (England), has one of the UK's largest collections of flowering cherries, with more than 150 varieties.
United States
Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C.
Cherry Blossoms in Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Branch Brook Park in
Newark, New Jersey
is the oldest county park in the United States and is home to the
nation's' largest collection of cherry blossom trees, with about 4,300.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States
in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an
earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in
1910. These trees were planted in
Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the
Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. (see
West Potomac Park). The first two original trees were planted by first lady
Helen Taft and
Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.
In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual
National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring.
Also, Balboa Park of San Diego has 2,000 cherry blossom trees that
blossom in mid to late March. In Los Angeles, over 2,000 trees are
located at
Lake Balboa in
Van Nuys.
These trees were donated by an anonymous Japanese benefactor and were
planted in 1992. They originated from a single parent tree and were
developed to grow in warm climates.
Philadelphia
is also home to over 2000 flowering Japanese cherry trees, half of
which were a gift from the Japanese government in 1926 in honor of the
150th anniversary of American independence, with the other half planted
by the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia between 1998 and
2007. Philadelphia's cherry blossoms are located within
Fairmount Park, and the annual
Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia celebrates the blooming trees. The
University of Washington in Seattle also has cherry blossoms in its Quad.
Other US cities have an annual Cherry Blossom Festival (or Sakura Matsuri), including the
International Cherry Blossom Festival in
Macon, Georgia, which features over 300,000 cherry trees. The
Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City also has a large, well-attended festival.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is the site of the peace conference that produced the
Treaty of Portsmouth,
for which the original Washington, DC cherry trees were given in
thanks. Several cherry trees planted on the bank of the tidal pond next
to Portsmouth City Hall were the gift of Portsmouth's Japanese sister
city of
Nichinan—the hometown of Marquis
Komura Jutarō, Japan's representative at the conference.
Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, has 200 somei yoschino trees, a gift from its sister institution, Japan's Chubu University.
