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Yesterday’s news – ‘Washi-no-o’ – single white fragrant blossoms

April 10, 2025  We are still featuring single white blossoms, most of which look the same, requiring taking note of other features to identify the cultivar. But these fragrant ‘Washi-no-o’ flowers are very distinctive with their narrow petals not overlapping, and the jagged petal edges supposedly suggesting their Japanese name for eagle’s tail.

Washi-no-o_QueensPark at Granville_Cutler_
Washi-no-o_QueensPark at Granville_Cutler_20250409_165620
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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.

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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