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Photos Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival

Yesterday’s news – rare single-white blossoms

April 17, 2023. Our popular widely planted ‘Akebono’ trees are starting to fade, and it’s not quite time yet for the even more widely-planted ‘Kanzan’ trees, so it’s time for us to notice some of the rare gems. Here are yet more single-whites, flowers with just five petals.

The flowers on the Oshima-zakura cherry look ever-so-much like those of ‘Umineko’ and ‘Snow Goose’ (featured at Yesterday’s news – Single whites: ‘Somei-yoshino’, ‘Akebono’ and ‘Umineko’/’Snow Goose’ – Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (vcbf.ca), of which it is one of the parents. But they are fragrant, and the tree shape is wide-spreading instead of upright.

OshimaCherry_KitsBeach-on-Arbutus_Cutler_20230415_143624
OshimaCherry_KitsBeach-on-Arbutus_Cutler_20230415_143624

Notice how smooth the petal edges are on the Oshima-zakura above. Now check out the jagged petal edges on this ‘Washi-no-o’. It’s name means “eagle’s tail”. These flowers are also fragrant.

20230412_Washi_NNootkaE25_Eng_7661
20230412_Washi-no-o_NootkaE25_Eng_7661

‘Tai-haku’, the “great white cherry”, are trees with substantial broad-spreading limbs when they are allowed the space to grow to their potential. The flowers are themselves of great size (for a cherry) – they can be up to 6 cm across, and the petals are quite rounded, making the flowers look even larger, particularly as they are bracketed by shiny bronze leaves (the leaves here have just emerged; check back in a week or so for a better photo).

20230423 SeaforthPeacePark Tai-haku Willard IMG_3016 2
20230423 SeaforthPeacePark Tai-haku Willard IMG_3016 2