Identification: Autumnalis Rosea - double pink, very early blooming

I received this today as Prunus xsubhirtella 'Autumnalis Rosea'.

(Update: This is not 'Jugatsu-zakura' (Autumnalis), which is basically, pure white. Images to follow in a separate thread)

Please note that the pistils in the images appear to make a bend of about 90 degrees. This is an artifact of laying the flowers on the scanner glass.

 

I originally wrote:
I'm of course not going to answer that question, but I'm going to describe the Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis' that isn't called 'Rosea' that I'm pretty sure about. To me the buds look different from the ones in the previous photos.

Now it seems that what I've described is the Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis Rosea'

'Autumnalis Rosea' have been fully though sparcely covered with blossoms since December (or a bit before) in Vancouver's west end, but the pale pink semi-double jagged-edged blossoms are tiny (smaller than a nickel - see the photo) and are easy to miss if you're not looking for them. In the winter, the trees certainly are not a blaze of colour, though the same trees are supposed to be somewhat flashier with larger blossoms in February and March. The buds are deep pink with the stamen extending noticeably beyond the petals.

It was pruning day at the co-op, so I collected some branches that held still while I took their pictures.

 

Wendy, yours are definitely 'Autumnalis Rosea'.

 

Yes, the common one in North America is 'Autumnalis Rosea'. To see 'Autumnalis' look at pictures in British books, which often (but not always) show the true item - both the flowers and the twigs are rather different, actually.

I have compared the two in flower, growing side by side at RHS Wisley. 'Autumnalis' is stouter-twigged and less floriferous, with fewer, much whiter petals. There was probably one growing as late as the 1980s in one Seattle park, other than that I have not heard of or seen any correctly identified examples anywhere in this region. Perhaps it exists back east somewhere in a public collection or at a specialist nursery, but I have no confirming details.

 

Doug, if that's the case, we've gone from your wishing you could get to see an 'Autumnalis Rosea' to there being any number you can choose to see, as there are several of this tree in the west end. But these don't look anything like Whitcomb to me (I'm referring to the Whitcomb thread where it seemed hard to distinguish that from 'Rosea'. The (what I've been calling) Whitcombs are not fully in bloom yet and the open blossoms are larger, deeper pink, and they stay pink. Maybe I'm mixing up the names?

You can see these 'Autumnalis Rosea' at:
1000 block Pacific, north side, at least 10 trees (the ones in my photos here)
1200 block Pacific, south side, 4 trees
Thurlow, lane between Harwood and Burnaby, west side, two trees
Cardero minipark at Burnaby St, one tree
Nicola minipark between Davie and Pendrell, 3 trees

 

Did I say 'Autumnalis Rosea'? As you say, there are plenty of those around. What I want to see is P. xsubhirtella 'Rosea' (the tree from which Whitcomb propagated his superior form).

 

No, I'm sure you said what you meant. I have these names all mixed up, which I mentioned in the Whitcomb thread. So the names I'm mixing up now are:
Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis'
Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis Rosea'
Prunus xsubhirtella 'Rosea' (locally known as Whitcomb)
Prunus xsubhirtella ‘Whitcomb’

This thread concerns the first two, and the Whitcomb thread concerns the last two.

 

Those are all different kinds, the problem with your last list is equating 'Rosea' with 'Whitcomb'.

'Autumnalis': double palest pink; possibly nearly extinct in this region
'Autumnalis Rosea': double definite pink; generally common
'Rosea': single strong pink, local presence possibly limited primarily to a handful of trees in Victoria
'Whitcomb': single strong(er?) pink with vigorous habit; very common throughout region

It appears to me all Higan cultivars may sometimes get hit strongly by dieback diseases here, including 'Whitcomb' which I think I have seen get heavy damage in a bad year along with others. Even the now very common Snow Fountains = 'Snofozam'* which introducer Lake County nursery promotes as disease resistant may often have a scattering of dead twigs in this region.

*Looks to be a Higan cultivar but have not satisfied myself that I have made a fully defensible determination; introducer lists it simply as an unspecified hybrid

 

I would have assumed a closer affinity to Prunus pendula for 'Snofozam', no? It looks to me basically like a good, white-flowered version of 'Pendula', but then, I've only seen it in pictures and out-of-flower in real life. Is it Snow Fountain or Snow Fountains? I've seen it listed both ways.

That's another one I'd like to see up close when it's in flower. Anyone know of a planting in Vancouver?

 

You could be right. To me it lacks the elongated parts (5" leaves, flowers on long stalks etc.) of P. pendula, looks quite like it has P. incisa in it. Would expect, if anything it might belong to P. x yedoensis if it's not a weeping Higan - certain white-flowered weeping Yoshino cherries here are similar. I've taken close looks but never with a manual in hand or specimens of all the others there for side-by-side comparison.

Introducer's New Plants web pages use the plural (Snow Fountains). However, other subjects are presented there with mistakes and inconsistencies, particularly among the trademark designations used - multiple selling names are shown as either a trademark or a registered trademark depending on which page you are looking at.

http://www.lakecountynursery.com/snow fountains.htm

I see Jacobson (2006, TREES OF SEATTLE - SECOND EDITION) continues to list it as Snow Fountains and that he also agrees with me on two points stated above:

"Probably a Higan Cherry selection...Very similar to weeping Yoshino cherry, but more refined"

 

The Autumnalis rosea around the West End still have blossoms - quite a bit less exciting now than in the winter (when they did not look exciting either), but they are larger than the winter blossoms, as I read they're supposed to be. In posting #2 I compared the size to a nickel. Now I'm comparing them to a quarter, and in the second photo particularly, the blossoms are larger than the quarter and look a lot like late Accolade blossoms.

 

I'm just posting this photo to record the October blooming of this cultivar. The first I noticed trees in bloom this year was October 11, 2008. This photo is from October 29. There are very few blooms, and they're very small, so they're easy to miss. This was taken at Nicola mini-park just south of Pendrell St.

 

Good eye (seems appropriate to use a baseball expression)! So it is a cherry-of-the-10th month, even here.

 

I just had to post this one, from October 22, Lost Lagoon. You can see the hairs on the stem, pedicels and leaves. There really are very few blossoms yet on these trees - they really seem to get going after the leaves fall off, and these leaves are still green.

 

They're back! I saw these Lost Lagoon 'Autumnalis Rosea' last week, but today I managed to get a photo with blue sky. I couldn't get a good one with blossoms and autumn leaf colour.

I see that two years ago in October, I mentioned how small the flowers were. All the flowers now are as large as they are in the spring - about 3cm. There are quite a few blossoms, but it's still almost impossible to know they're there unless you're looking carefully for them.

 

Lost Lagoon 'Autumnalis Rosea'

 

I was struck yesterday by how relatively good this 'Autumnalis Rosea' looks, from the lane on Thurlow in the West End. The photo on the left is the way it looked in bloom back in January, and on the right, how it looks right now. Almost all the 'Kanzan' in town are looking pretty terrible, with lots of brown leaves. But this tree, which I've always considered kind-of ratty looking, with Witch's Broom yet, is doing a lot better than all those 'Kanzan'. The leaves are suffering from lack of water, but it looks like a nice full tree.


Here are some leaf photos. I was also struck by how large and coarse the leaves are considering how tiny and delicate the flowers are.

 

If you're looking for a description all in one place, here is the page for 'Autumnalis' and 'Autumnalis Rosea' from Ornamental Cherries of Vancouver, by UBCBG's Douglas Justice. You'll see that the photos in the book came from this thread.

 

Just a comment that this year, 2015, the early-blooming trees got themselves going in October in Vancouver. There are postings in the West End / Stanley Park | UBC Botanical Garden Forums thread and a few other threads in VCBF Neighbourhood Blogs | UBC Botanical Garden Forums.