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Photos Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival

Yesterday’s news – double blossom ‘Takasago’ and ‘Shirotae’

April 21, 2023. Double blossoms today! Still not the ubiquitous late-season ‘Kanzan’, which are biding their time. It’s hard to beat the beauty of these dark purplish-red ‘Takasago’ buds set against the riot of colour in the double pinky-white blossoms. The densely packed flower clusters suffer from an air circulation problem in our rainy climate, making the trees not all that healthy.

20230421_Takasago_TalismanDinmont_Eng_7857
20230421_Takasago_TalismanDinmont_Eng_7857

But flowers don’t need all that colour to be stunning. Much more common around here are ‘Shirotae’, referring to a kind of white cloth in Japanese. Buds become white before they open. The green leaves often emerge with the flowers. These blossoms are fragrant, smelling of almonds. These are often planted in groups, making the fragrance all the more noticeable.

20230421 DougallPk Shirotae Willard IMG_2922
20230421 DougallPk Shirotae Willard IMG_2922
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Photos

Takasago blossoms

http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showpost.php?p=309397&postcount=133

From Wendy Cutler:

Anne Eng (aka Anne Mah) has posted some photos of Takasago blossoms.

The problem with “Takasago”, as Douglas Justice said about a different kind of cherry, is that they are “exquisite flowers on ugly trees”.  On the festival Cherry Cultivars page, he says “This cherry’s tight, clustered flowers unfortunately also increase its susceptibility to disease, and most specimens in Vancouver are badly disfigured”. By which he means that they have brown rot all over them.

The blossoms are particularly beautiful when they’re first coming out, when the buds are almost red and the flowers open to white, demonstrated beautifully in Anne’s photos. They’re coming out now, so it’s time to look for them.

20130401_CreelmanChestnut_Takasago_Eng_1055