March 31, 2023. In the past two postings, we have featured pink blossoms that can be seen around town now, or coming soon. You can find the most recent posting at Yesterday’s news – pink blossoms – Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca. Today we feature white flowers.
We think ‘Fudan-zakura’ cherries start blooming in late winter – we only knew one location and haven’t been able to follow it much. But a cherry scout has just convinced us that a group of trees in Arbutus Ridge, unidentifed since 2007, are this cultivar. This photo, though, was taken by Shirley Willard at the tree in Hastings-Sunrise that we’ve known for several years.
These Little Twist® flowers, photographed by new Cherry Scout Marg Kitso in Langdale, may look similar to the ones above, but the trees look very, well, twisty. This is also found by the name ‘Kojo-no-mai’, which means “flight of the butterflies”.
Anne Eng photographed the ‘Snofozam’ flowers below at VanDusen Botanical Garden. Again, similar flowers to the ones above, but on very weeping trees.
Just opening now are ‘Sendai-shidare’, another weeping tree that we have trouble distinguishing from ‘Snofozam’ pictured above. They look very different here. Maybe these two photos will help us; particularly notice the long narrow sepals below, the emerging leaves, and the greener calyces. This photo is from Shirley Willard, taken in the West End.
