Sakura

The cherry blossom has come out over the past two days.

(Click on the images to get the non-compressed versions. If your cursor arrow turns into a magnifying glass, click the newly opened images again.)



One of the reasons why the cherry blossom is so dramatic in Japan is that basically all the trees are the same tree. The type which lines the roads and rivers and sprinkles every hillside with patches of spring snow is unable, as I understand it, to reproduce naturally. It is planted with cuttings from established trees which themselves trace their roots back to one original specimen. My botany is super poor, so I might be barking up the wrong tree, as it were, but I think that is why all the blooms rush out at precisely the same time.

Sakura and Fuji: