Identification: Pandora - Single pinky white, mid-season, upright spreading

Pandora - Single white blossoms, early

[Edited 2011aug3 by wcutler: I've moved postings about 'Pandora' trees into one thread and have removed irrelevant comments]

Is everything that has single pinky white blossoms Akebono if it isn't Somei-yoshino? What about these isolated trees that are totally in bloom in places where trees that are certainly Akebonos with those nice horizontal lines don't have any open blossoms at all? Here's one inside a pool enclosure on 15th Ave between Ontario and Manitoba.


Anne posted some photos of this and two others in the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood blog.

These just don't look like the Burrard Station trees to me.

 

Re: What cherry? Singly pinky white, early mid-season, round shape

Maybe this is another one, from Stanley Park, just past the entrance off a path below Nelson St. I didn't have a very good access point for the photo, and certainly couldn't get close to the blossoms. It's a full two weeks earlier than the Somei-yoshino nearby in the park, which have only a few or no open blossoms.


So what about this tree that I posted in the West End neighbourhood blog, which we thought last year was Somei-yoshino? It and the smaller one near it are fully in bloom. They're profusely blooming, but not healthy - maybe because of the grafting?


The blossoms on both these trees look quite white, whereas the one in Mount Pleasant had a somewhat peachy pale pink appearance.

 

Re: What cherry? Singly pinky white, early mid-season, round shape

It really helps to pick specimens of trees being wondered about and hold them up next to other, similar ones you are confident about the naming of to see if they are the same.

 

Re: What cherry? Singly pinky white, early mid-season, round shape

The first set of cherry images suggests what I've tentatively identified as 'Pandora'.

The second set is less obvious to me. The posted images are very good, but it would be great if the photographers could also concentrate on close-ups of flowers, front and back, and scale. Identification often requires recording most of the following:

• whether the inflorescence is corymbose or umbellate
• whether calyx, petals, pedicels, shoots, etc. are pubescent
• shape, size and colour of calyx and sepals
• whether petals are entire, emarginate, ragged, etc.
  how the inflorescences are borne on the stems (on spurs, sparingly, densely, etc.)
• whether the flowers are fragrant
• the shape and size of floral bracts
• what the leaves look like (and do the emerge at the same time as the opening flowers?)
• the shape and size of stipules

 

Re: What cherry? Singly pinky white, early mid-season, round shape

I bought a small camera so I might always have it in my purse; now it seems I need a small ladder in my purse too! Thanks for wanting to help. I'd like to get you that information too.

I'll tell the scouts. Some terms to add to your glossary: calyx, sepals, emarginate, stipules (and how they're different from bracts).

 

Pandora - single white, early mid-season, upright shape

This cherry flowers has beautiful light pink 5 petals with notch, flat shap, three flowers together. 3~4 trees are located 6 Ave. between Yew and Cypress Street. There are several kinds of unknown cherry trees on this block.

 

Re: What kind of cherry? Yet another single white early mid-season

Resembles 'Pandora' shown elsewhere here.

 

Re: Pandora - single white, early mid-season, upright shape

The first shot is of the same trees at the end of October. The Schmittii across the street have just about lost their leaves now. The other two photos belong to the Pandora identified elsewhere, farther east on W 6th, west of Cypress St.

 

Re: Pandora - single white, early mid-season, upright shape

Fall foliage of the two trees at the main entrance of Mount Pleasant Community Centre, 16th Avenue and Ontario Street.

 

I've posted these in the Spires or what? thread last year, but they're not that cultivar for sure, and Mariko and I love these trees and think they should be festival favourites, but the point of favourites is that we tell people what they're looking at, so we'd need an id. I left a card in the mailbox asking them to contact me if they know what they are, but no word yet!

Mariko said about them:

... Wendy posted the trees on Arbutus near 51st (Kerrisdale) as might-be-Pandora. I went to check, but they were totally different from the ones on 50th. They are very beautiful pink tree without leaves and abundant flowers. Also they are very healthy looking. (One of the healthiest looking Ornamental cherries in Vancouver!!) Only common thing is they are very upright tree.
​

I'm including a photo of the bottom of the trunk to back up our claim that these are not grafted.

 

Re: P.serrulata var.spontanea - Single pinky white, early mid-season, round shape

And speaking of clarifications... The first set of images in this thread, of the beautiful trees at 16th and Ontario (outside Mount Pleasant Community Centre), are of 'Pandora'. I'm reasonably satisfied with that diagnosis. Images below were taken 13 April 2009.

 

Re: What cherry? Single pinky white, mid-season, upright spreading

These are 'Pandora'. They are extremely beautiful specimens.

 

Re: What cherry? Single pinky white, mid-season, upright spreading

Mrs Vogel phoned me but she doesn't have the name. She still will check with the gardener who planted them in 1986 to see if he remembers. She said they spray them every year. She would be delighted if they were a festival favourite.

 

Re: What cherry? Single pinky white, mid-season, upright spreading

1986, eh? I'll bet they were purchased at Lang's Nursery in Delta (formerly of Richmond).

 

Re: What cherry? Single pinky white, mid-season, upright spreading

I'll bet they don't still have the record of the sale.

 

It is a little to late to write, but 'Pandora' on Arbutus&51 and Pandora on 50th&MarineCr. are totally different. Arbutus&51 ones are same as 6th&Arbutus which is in the handbook, but 50th&MarineCr. is totally different.
Arbutus&51 (April 20)

50th& MarineCr. (April 20) finished

On April 16, I visited Arbutus&51st ones and met a gardener. He didn't know about the cultivar (he wasn't a person who made the garden) but he gave me a small branch.
So I brought it to 50th& MarineCr. and compared.
They were different size, different petal shape and different setting of flowers.

Left /Arbutus&51st Right/50th&MarineCr.


Arbutus&51st (April 15)

50th&MarineCr. (April 16)

 

For the 50thMarineCr ones, there are no leaves yet, so not Yama-zakura, right? The blossom photo looks like Somei-yoshino. What else do we know (except Akebono) with tight balls of blossoms like that? The shape of the tree is what makes that seem questionnable.

 

I thought it looked like a grafted 'Somei-yoshino'.

 

It can't be Grafted Somei-yoshino. I should have compared with Somei-yoshino at the site. Somei-yoshinos on Marine Crescent are less than 100M away from these trees. Flowers are smaller than Somei-yoshino. I know Grafted Somei-yoshino. Not only in UBC but there's one on 38th & Collingwood. Flowers are exactly same as usual ones.
I haven't visited the site but I think those look similar to Laura's unknown tree in Kensington/Cedar Cottage. She compared with Akebono.
Somei-yoshino is just a bit smaller than Akebono but almost same size.


But we forgot about biggest difference between those trees and Somei-yoshino! Somei-yoshino has green leaves after the flowers. Those have brown leaves with flowers!

 

Here's a leaf photo from the 51st and Arbutus 'Pandora' trees. The leaves were very small, maybe three inches or even shorter.

 

Re: Pandora cherry

[Note from wcutler 2010nov08: I've copied this from the Accolade thread, where Douglas Justice requested the 'Pandora' photo.]

Douglas - I confess I haven't returned to this forum until my email alerted me today that there was an entry re 'Accolade', to which I responded. So I hadn't seen your request re 'Pandora' from February 2008.

I am especially interested in Japanese cherries, and have photographed them all over the world, including Washington, New York, London's KEW, Kyoto and Mount Yoshino.

My photos of 'Pandora' are not great, but this a small grove of them at Hamilton's Royal Botanical Garden, likely taken on April 29, 2004. Also shown is a closeup of a flowering branch and one of adventitious buds emerging from the trunk.

 

Here's the description from Ornamental Cherries of Vancouver, by UBCBG's Douglas Justice.

 

Two more shots of 'Pandora' blossoms, taken in Hamilton ON (Royal Botanical Gardens) on May 10, 2011

 

May 10?? Ours were in bloom April 2 this year; this has been a cold year for us, and last year was about the same. The trees across the street that are usually a week or two later bloomed on April 10 last year.

 

Yes, May 10th 2011. 2010 was an early year for us, but last spring was rainy, rainy, rainy and cool. Forsythia were in bloom on May 10, 2011 too. Also P. 'Ivensii', 'Accolade' and other early prunus.

Now 2012 is an entirely different picture. 'Accolade' has almost finished, so I'm sure the P. x yedoensis are wrapping up too, though it's been cool after our Feb/March heat wave and things are now holding on.

I notice in Kuitert that there is some confusion about 'Akebono', as to whether it's the Clarke introduction from California 1925 (aka 'Daybreak' and 'Amerika' in Japan) or 'Yae-akebono', which translates as double daybreak cherry and found among the cherries on the Arakawa River in Kyoto in the late 19th century. It's described as "very large, semi-double, rose, fragrant." It is very similar to 'Fukurokuju'.