A deep-pink, double-flowered cultivar with coppery young leaves is the commonest blossom tree on British streets in April
Japanese flowering cherry (Kanzan).
Nature · Trees
Japanese flowering cherry
Neophyte (cultivars since the 19th century) · deciduous to 12 m · streets, parks and gardens
Prunus serrulata (Sato-zakura cultivars) — Rosaceae
The pink and white blossom of British suburban streets in April: garden cultivars of Japanese origin, mostly grouped under Prunus serrulata, of which the deep pink, double-flowered Kanzan is the commonest. They are ornamental, essentially fruitless trees. Collingwood Ingram, the English gardener and ornithologist, rescued the lost white cultivar Taihaku from a Sussex garden in 1923.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Big showy double or semi-double flowers in pink or white, opening in April and May, on bare or just-leafing twigs
- ▸Coppery or bronze young leaves (Kanzan), turning orange-red in autumn
- ▸Stiffly upright, vase-shaped outline when young, spreading later
- ▸Shiny, banded bark with horizontal lenticels, typical of cherries
- ▸Look-alike: wild cherry or gean (Prunus avium) is native, with single white flowers, green young leaves and red edible-looking fruits; Japanese cherry flowers are larger, double and pink.
How to know it
A gardener-ornithologist saved a lost great white cultivar from a garden in Sussex in 1923 by taking cuttings
Japanese flowering cherry (Taihaku). Collingwood Ingram.
The Japanese name for this group of garden cherries means village cherry, and they bear almost no fruit
Japanese flowering cherry.
Its cultivars may suffer from silver leaf, bacterial canker and blossom wilt
Japanese flowering cherry (RHS).
Its blossom is the object of the Japanese custom of hanami, or flower viewing
Japanese flowering cherry.
Its double pink flowers, bronze young leaves and vase shape distinguish it from the single-flowered native gean
Japanese flowering cherry.
Quick-fire facts
- •Prunus serrulata — serrulata means finely saw-toothed, for the leaf edge; garden forms are known as Sato-zakura (village cherries)
- •Kanzan has vivid purplish-pink double flowers about 5 cm across, coppery-brown young foliage and a stiffly vase-shaped habit when young (RHS)
- •Taihaku (Great White Cherry) was rescued by Collingwood Ingram (1880–1981) in 1923 from a near-dead tree in a Sussex garden; all living Taihaku descend from his cuttings
- •Taihaku was reintroduced to Japan in 1932
- •RHS: may be susceptible to peach leaf curl, silver leaf, bacterial canker, blossom wilt and honey fungus; also bullfinches
- •Many are grafted on wild cherry stocks, which can sucker
- •Flowering in April, ahead of most other trees in the park
- •Not invasive; no notifiable pest specific to it
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