''Prunus serrulata'' or Japanese cherry is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of cherry tree that grows naturally in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, and it also refers to a

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

produced from ''Prunus speciosa'' (Oshima cherry), a cherry tree

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

in Japan.Prunus serrulata
/ref>Toshio Katsuki. (2015) ''Sakura''. p.137

Iwanami Shoten is a Japanese publishing company based in Tokyo.Louis Frédéric, ''Japan Encyclopedia'', Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 409. Iwanami Shoten was founded in 1913 by Iwanami Shigeo. Its first major publication was Natsume Sōseki's novel '' ...

. Historically, the Japanese have developed many cultivars by selective breeding of cherry trees, which are produced by the complicated crossing of several wild species, and they are used for ornamental purposes all over the world. Of these, the cultivars produced by complex interspecific hybrids based on the Oshima cherry are also known as the ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group.

Varieties and Form

Classification

The classification of cherry blossoms varies from country to country and from period to period. For example, in the Japanese classification, ''P. serrulata'' Lindl. f. ''albida'', ''P. serrulata'' var. ''spontanea'', ''P. serrulata'' var. ''pubescens'' and ''P. serrulata'' Lindl. var. ''sachalinensis'', the

varieties Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

and

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data ...

constituting this

, are classified as independent species because of their genetic, morphological, and flowering time differences.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' pp.156-170.

. There are several

and

(or species): *''Prunus serrulata'' f. ''albida'' (syn. ''

Prunus speciosa ''Prunus speciosa'', the Oshima cherry, Japanese オオシマザクラ (Oshima zakura), is native to Izu Ōshima island and the Izu Peninsula on Honshū near Tokyo, Japan.Bean, W. J. (1980). ''Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles'' 8th ed. ...

''). Japan.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' p.89. pp.166-170.

. *''Prunus serrulata'' var. ''spontanea'' or ''Prunus serrulata'' f. ''spontanea'' (syn. ''Prunus jamasakura''). Japan.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' pp.156-160.

. :Some books say that ''P. jamasakura'' grows wild in China and Korea, but '' P. leveilleana'' and '' P. sargentii'' were mistaken for ''P. jamasakura''. *''Prunus serrulata'' var. ''pubescens'' (syn. ''

Prunus leveilleana ''Prunus leveilleana'' is a native of Korea and Japan. It generally has autumnal leaves of reddish-brown or crimson red colour. It has flowers of bright yellow-white colors. Biochemistry In this species various new flavonoid compounds have been ...

''). Japan, Korea, China.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' pp.160-163.

. *''Prunus serrulata'' var. ''sachalinensis'' (syn. ''

Prunus sargentii ''Prunus sargentii'', commonly known as Sargent's cherry or North Japanese hill cherry, is a species of cherry native to Japan, Korea, and Sakhalin (Russia). The tree was named for Charles Sprague Sargent. Description ''Prunus sargentii'' is ...

''). Japan, Korea, eastern Russia, China.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' pp.163-166.

Trees and flowers

''Prunus serrulata'' is a small

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

with a short single trunk, with a dense crown reaching a height of . The smooth bark is chestnut-brown, with prominent horizontal lenticels. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are arranged alternately, simple, ovate-lanceolate, 5–13 cm long and 2.5–6.5 cm broad, with a short petiole and a serrate or doubly serrate margin. At the end of autumn, the green leaves turn yellow, red or crimson. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are produced in racemose clusters of two to five together at nodes on short spurs in spring at the same time as the new leaves appear; they are white to pink, with five petals in the wild type tree. Its

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

, the , has differences to the ''

Prunus avium ''Prunus avium'', commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry, gean, or bird cherryWorld Economic Plants: A Standard Reference, Second Edition'. CRC Press; 19 April 2016. . p. 833–. is a species of cherry, a flowering plant in the rose family, ...

'' in that sakuranbo are smaller in size and bitterer in taste; the sakuranbo is a

globose A sphere () is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the ...

black

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

8–10mm in diameter. Owing to their bitter taste, the sakuranbo should not be eaten raw, or whole; the seed inside should be removed and the fruit itself preserved. Because of its evolution, the fruit developed merely as a small, ovoid cherry-like fruit, but it doesn't develop past a small amount of fleshy mass around a seed; as ''P. serrulata'' was bred for its flowers, its fruits do not mature fully. They simply will not ripen the way cherry varieties bred for their fruit do.

Cultivars

Among the ''Prunus serrulata'', many

cultivars A cultivar is a type of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and when Plant propagation, propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and st ...

derived from Japanese endemic ''Prunus speciosa'' (Oshima cherry), are widely grown as a flowering

ornamental tree Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that i ...

, both in Japan and throughout the temperate regions of the world. Numerous cultivars have been selected, many of them with double flowers with the

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s replaced by additional petals. According to an unprecedented and detailed DNA study conducted by the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in 2014, many of the cherry blossom cultivars used for

hanami is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers; in this case almost always refer to those of the or, less frequently, trees. From the end of March to early May, cherry trees bloom all over Japan, and around ...

around the world were derived from the complicated hybridization of wild species such as '' P. sargentii'', '' P. itosakura'', '' P. leveilleana'', '' P. apetala'', '' P. incisa'' and '' P. campanulata'' with the Oshima cherry, a endemic species of Japan.Toshio Katsuki (2015). ''Sakura'' pp.86-95.

. As the population increased in the southern

Kanto region Kantō (Japanese) Kanto is a simplified spelling of , a Japanese word, only omitting the diacritics. In Japan Kantō may refer to: *Kantō Plain * Kantō region * Kantō-kai, organized crime group * Kanto (Pokémon), a geographical region in th ...

during the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, Oshima cherries, which were originally from Izu Oshima Island, were brought into

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...

(the main island of Japan) to be cultivated and brought to

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, the capital of Japan. In the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

, Oshima cherries were crossed with ''P. jamasakura'', and cultivars of Sato-zakura group such as 'Fugenzo' and 'Mikurumakaishi' began to appear. In the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, various double-flowered cultivars were produced and planted on the banks of rivers, on Buddhist temples, in

Shinto shrines A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

and in

daimyo were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally ...

gardens in urban areas such as Edo, and the common people living in urban areas could enjoy them. In the documents at that time, more than 200 cultivars of cherry trees were recorded, and currently known cultivars of cherry trees such as 'Kanzan' are also mentioned. In American classification, these cultivars are classified as ''Prunus serrulata'' var. ''lannesiana'' or ''Prunus serrulata'' var. ''pendula'' (syn. ''Prunus lannesiana''). However, detailed DNA studies revealed that they were complex interspecific hybrids with the Oshima cherry, so they are classified as the ''Prunus'' Sato-zakura group or ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura group. 'Kanzan' is the most popular Japanese cherry tree cultivar for cherry blossom viewing in Europe and North America. Compared with 'Yoshino cherry', a representative Japanese cultivar, it is popular because it grows well even in cold regions, is small and easy to plant in the garden, and has large flowers and deep pink petals. In the city of

Bonn, Germany The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...

, there is a row of cherry trees where 300 kanzan trees were planted in the late 1980s. In Western countries, 'Pink Perfection' and 'Royal Burgundy' originated in 'Kanzan' have been created.Toshio Katsuki. (2018) ''Sakura no Kagaku (Science of Cherry Blossoms)''. pp.40-42 SB Creative. In some cultivars, the

pistil Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

changes like a leaf and loses its fertility, and for example, 'Fugenzo' and 'Ichiyo', can only be propagated by artificial methods such as

grafting Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion () while the lower part is called the rootstock. The succ ...

and

cutting Cutting is the separation or opening of a physical object, into two or more portions, through the application of an acutely directed force. Implements commonly used for wikt:cut, cutting are the knife and saw, or in medicine and science the scal ...

.Toshio Katsuki. (2015) ''Sakura'' p.107

. In cultivation in Europe and North America, it is usually grafted on to ''

'' roots; the cultivated forms rarely bear fruit. It is viewed as part of the Japanese custom of

Hanami is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers; in this case almost always refer to those of the or, less frequently, trees. From the end of March to early May, cherry trees bloom all over Japan, and around ...

. Some important

include: * 'Kanzan'. = 'Sekiyama' or 'Kwanzan'. ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Sekiyama' KoidzClassification and Morphological Identification of Cherry Blossoms.
Toshio Katsuki (2017). ::Flowers pink, double; young leaves bronze-coloured at first, becoming green.

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established annual award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. History The Award of Garden Merit ...

. *'Amanogawa'. ::Fastigiate cherry, with columnar habit; flowers semi-double, pale pink. Award of Garden Merit. Kenrokuen-kumagai1

* 'Choshu-hizakura' Also known as 'Kenrokuen-kumagai'. ''Crasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Choshu-hizakura' ::Large flowers and red leaves open at the same time. In a DNA study published in 2014, 'Choshu-hizakura' and 'Kenrokuen-magai' were found to be the same clone. * 'Fugenzo'. = 'Shiro-fugen'. ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Albo-rosea' Makino ::Flowers double, deep pink at first, fading to pale pink. In Japanese, ''fugen'' refers to

Samantabhadra Samantabhadra (Lit. "All Good", or "Always Auspicious") may refer to: * Samantabhadra (Bodhisattva), a bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism associated with practice and meditation * ''Samantabhadra'' (Tibetan: ''Kuntu Zangpo''), the name of a Buddha, ...

and ''zo'' refers to an elephant, and the origin of the name comes from the fact that the two

s, which look like leaves, were likened to the tusks of a white elephant on which Samantabhadra rides. Award of Garden Merit. *'Kiku-shidare'. ::Cheal's Weeping Cherry. Stems weeping; flowers double, pink. Tends to be short-lived. イチヨウ全体

* 'Ichiyo'. ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Hisakura' Koehne ::Flowers double, pale pink at first, fading to white. The name comes from the fact that only one pistil is changed like a leaf, and ''ichi (一)'' means 'one' and ''yo (葉)'' means' leaf'. In the Japanese climate, it is one of the cultivars that are likely to become the largest tree among the double-flowered cherry trees derived from Oshima cherry. Award of Garden Merit. * 'Shirotae'. Mt. Fuji Cherry. ''Crasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Shirotae' Koidz ::Very low, broad crown with nearly horizontal branching; flowers pure white, semi-double. Award of Garden Merit. * 'Taihaku'. ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Taihaku' Ingram ::Great White Cherry. Flowers single, white, very large (up to 8 cm diameter); young leaves bronze-coloured at first, becoming green. By the beginning of the 20th century it had already ceased to exist in Japan, but

Collingwood Ingram Collingwood "Cherry" Ingram (30 October 1880 – 19 May 1981), was a British ornithologist, plant collector and gardener, who was an authority on Japanese flowering cherries. Personal life Collingwood Ingram was a son of Sir William Ingram and M ...

, an English man who had imported it from Japan before then, sent it back to Japan in 1932.Toshio Katsuki. (2015) ''Sakura''. pp.119-123

. Award of Garden Merit. * 'Ukon'. = 'Grandiflora', ''P. serrulata'' f. ''grandiflora'' Wagner. ''Cerasus'' Sato-zakura Group 'Grandiflora' A. Wagner ::Green cerry Cherry. Flowers semi-double, cream-white or pale yellow. Young leaves light bronzy-green. Fall leaf color can be purple or rusty-red. 'Ukon' was developed in the Edo period.Toshio Katsuki. (2015) ''Sakura''. pp.86-95 p.104

. Award of Garden Merit.

Gallery

, File:Prunus serrulata 'Kanzan' 03.JPG, Buds on cultivar 'Kanzan' File:Prunus serrulata 2005 spring 018.jpg, ''P. serrulata'' flowers File:PrunusSerrulataBark.jpg, Bark showing lenticels File:PrunusSerrulataLeaf.jpg, Leaf close up File:Yoshitoshi The Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree.jpg, Kurozome, the

tree spirit A tree deity or tree spirit is a nature deity related to a tree. Such deities are present in many cultures. They are usually represented as a young woman, often connected to ancient fertility and tree worship lore.Heinrich Zimmer, ''Myths and Sym ...

of the Japanese Cherry Tree File:Prunus serrulata - flowers close-up.jpg, Cultivar flower close up File:Prunus serrulata1.jpg, ''Prunus serrulata'' –

Cherry blossom A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of genus ''Prunus'' or ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especially in Japan. They generally ...

s File:2014-10-30 09 53 30 Kanzan Cherry foliage during autumn along Terrace Boulevard in Ewing, New Jersey.JPG, Typical autumn foliage File:Ukon.JPG, 'Ukon' (''Prunus lannesiana'' Wilson cv. 'Grandiflora')

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q165321 serrulata Cherry blossom Cherries Trees of Japan Trees of China Flora of Asia Trees of Korea National symbols of Japan Garden plants of Asia Plants used in bonsai Ornamental trees