A tree near Fremlin and 43rd - mid-season single, bronze leaves

Discussion in 'Ornamental Cherries' started by bleung, Apr 9, 2014.

  1. bleung

    bleung New Member

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    Sorry, can I ask what this tree may be too; It's a private one I saw in an alley by Fremlin and 43rd, thanks.

    IMG_7170.jpg IMG_7171.jpg
     
  2. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    [Edited by wcutler: Removed comment pertaining to the thread from which this has been removed]

    [...]'Tai Haku' - large single white blossoms, leaves opening bronze.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2014
  3. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    I think the second one is something else, more on the order of Oshima cherry, with smaller flowers or more slender stalks, pointing in more directions, with narrower leaves, all on more slender twigs.
     
  4. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    OK, Brandon, how large are these flowers? The bronze leaves would seem to limit the possibilities, but if the flowers are more like 4cm and not approaching 6cm, then hmm. Oshima leaves are so green. Yama-zakura? I'm not seeing the red bud scales we thought were characteristic of that.
    Here is Brandon's photo of what he can see of the tree (from his posting in the Oakridge thread):
    20140409_Fremlin43rd_TaiHaku_Leung_1.jpg

    Has our new scout discovered a new tree?
     
  5. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    Much too dense, pointy and busy for 'Tai Haku'.
     
  6. bleung

    bleung New Member

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    Well, the plot thickens--I'll have to take another look tomorrow morning and measure the blossoms and maybe take some closer pictures, thanks.
     
  7. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    Same kind might be shown and described in one of the D Justice Vancouver cherry handbooks.
     
  8. bleung

    bleung New Member

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    Fremlin and 43rd

    I went back to the tree and the blossoms measured around 3-4 cm and I shot some more close-ups.

    IMG_7243.jpg IMG_7245.jpg IMG_7249.jpg IMG_7247.jpg IMG_7248.jpg
     
  9. Douglas Justice

    Douglas Justice Well-Known Member UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout Maple Society 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    Wow! And it looks even more impressive in person. The flowers are large (up to 4.5 cm), much like those of Prunus serrulata var. speciosa with long slender pedicels, narrow, tapering calyx tubes and narrow, serrated sepals. However, the flowers are definitely pink and the emerging foliage a rich coppery-bronze. I thought I had a good identification with P. serrulata var. speciosa f. idzuensis, but then I noticed that the pedicels are hairy. It is otherwise glabrous.

    Overall, it does look a bit like 'Choshu-hizakura' but without the red bracts and calyx (and of course, this is much earlier to bloom). The crown is very broad spreading, much like P. serrulata var. spontanea. I suspect it was grown from a seed collected in Japan. Perhaps the homeowners know the history.
     

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  10. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    And without the extra petals. The tree photo really does look like 'Choshu-hizakura'. Too bad about the details.

    I had trouble deciding what colour to call this - in Brandon's photos, the blossoms look totally white; in Douglas's, they appear pink, as he says.

    For anyone trying to follow this from what's in our book, Prunus serrulata var. speciosa is Oshima-zakura; P. serrulata var. spontanea is yama-zakura.

    Mariko had mentioned 'Murasaki-zakura' as a possibility when we were looking at 'Choshu-hizakura', and Douglas mentioned 'Kenrokuen-kumagai', about which Mariko commented: "The book says ['Choshu-hizakura'] looks almost like Kenrokuen-kumagai, but it has extra petals", implying that 'Kenrokuen-kumagai' does not have extra petals.
     
  11. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Neither of those two cultivars seems likely, now that I've had a minute to check them out. Re: 'Murasaki-zakura', a Japanese Wikipedia page for the synonym Prunus lannesiana 'Purpurea' indicates that the petals get darker toward the edges. It's not clear what colour the petals are, but they seem to be a single colour.

    And photos of 'Kenrokuen-kumagai' show extra petals and variation in colour on the blossoms.
     
  12. Douglas Justice

    Douglas Justice Well-Known Member UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout Maple Society 10 Years

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    The Keele University web page for 'Murasaki-zakura' shows the flowers for that cultivar as semi-double. My impression of the flower colour of our unknown cherry is bright, light pink in bud, but as the insides of the petals are lighter in colour, the overall effect is pale pink. The flowers fade to nearly white, but the base of the petals become ruddy before falling.
     
  13. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Re: Two trees on Oak and 49th

    Good call, Douglas! Here is Miyuki Shimizu, who planted the tree 40 years ago from a seed her mother sent her from Shiga Prefecture near Kyoto. She assumed it was yama-zakura and she also used the term mountain cherry. She also planted the red camellia behind her to the right, which she received at the same time. No-one has ever talked to her about her cherry tree before - she seemed quite pleased that it's been noticed.
    It's colouring up quite a bit now.
    20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat_Cutler_P1030842.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat_Cutler_P1030836.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat_Cutler_P1030834.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat_Cutler_P1030846.jpg

    This tree in her front yard is a seedling from the tree at the back. It was around two meters from the trunk of the older tree, and Miyuki was quite certain that it was not growing from the rootstock. She pulled it up when it was around 17cm and planted it in the front, but can only guess now that it was around 20-25 years ago. She didn't want a tree as large as the parent tree, so she has been pruning it. I'm not sure whether the last photo shows the deeply bifurcated narrow stipules that yama-zakura are supposed to have. It didn't occur to me to measure those.
    20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030850.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030852.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030853.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030857.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030860.jpg

    Some of the flowers on the tree in the front are as large as 5cm, quite a bit larger than the 2-3cm given in Kuitert, Japanese Flowering Cherries, p. 190-191, for yama-zakura. Miyuki pointed out the flowers falling whole, as well as some petals.
    20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030866.jpg 20140413_Fremlin43rd_yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1030855.jpg

    I'm sorry Miyuki declined my invitation to be a cherry scout. She grew up in Japan and has paid a lot of attention to cherries. I enjoyed meeting her.
     
  14. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Here are some more photos and some questions.

    This is the tree in the back yard, two days later.
    20140415_Fremlin43rd_Yama-zakuraORwhat_Cutler_P1040242.jpg

    This is the tree in the front yard. Looking at the photos, I'm getting convinced that it looks a bit different, as it could be expect to, since it's a seedling, though the flowers are the same large size. I don't see any hairs on the stems, for one thing, and I went back and looked at photos from a day when it wasn't wet. Here's a trifurcated stipule in the second photo, if that means anything. The flower shape seems a bit different in the photos, and of course, the colour is now different.
    20140415_Fremlin43rd_Yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1040257.jpg 20140415_Fremlin43rd_Yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1040267.jpg 20140415_Fremlin43rd_Yama-zakuraORwhat-seedling_Cutler_P1040270.jpg

    So the questions are, do I understand most of this correctly? If this (the back yard tree) were a seed from a species tree, we could have a name for it if we could figure it out. But knowing that it's a seedling, there's no point trying to match it to a cultivar, as it's already not necessarily true to that. In that case, it could be its own thing. Or even from a species, it could be its own thing. If we were to clone this, then do we get to name it?
     
  15. Douglas Justice

    Douglas Justice Well-Known Member UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout Maple Society 10 Years

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    I think deeply divided stipules are common with a number of Prunus serrulata variants.

    We now know for sure that the tree is a seedling. The seed most likely came from a Prunus serrulata var. spontanea tree in Japan, but as it differs in a number of ways from the typical form of that variety, we cannot assign it to that variety, nor to any known cultivar (even if it was a close match).

    Indeed, this is precisely the sort of situation where it is appropriate to give it a unique name. However, if we were to name it, there is a specific protocol that must be followed (overview here).
     
  16. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    I'm bumping this, though we forgot all about it last year, and this year I missed it as well. It's past blooming now. The last photo is a limb off the main trunk.
    20160401_Fremlin43rdBackYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210948.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdBackYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210958.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdBackYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210960.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdBackYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210962.JPG

    Step 1: " First check that you do actually have a cultivar. A single plant is not a cultivar: a cultivar is a group of individual plants which collectively is distinct from any other, which is uniform in its overall appearance and which remains stable in its attributes. Do not attempt to name a cultivar until you have a number of individuals that are uniform and stable. Now convince yourself that your cultivar is really worth naming; there is no point in going through the process of naming your cultivar if it is not an improvement on others."

    So, @Douglas Justice, are we waiting for you to take cuttings and grow this thing? Or do we just call it yama-zakura and let it go at that? (Edited - no, you said it's too different, we can't do that.)

    I was a lot more shy about talking to the man in the back yard today, who I guessed was not related to Miyuki and didn't look like he wanted company. We might be very lucky to have found her when she owned the house. Or maybe I'm wrong and he's a friend or relative.

    Here is the front yard tree. We don't really know what the tree shape would be.
    20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210966.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210972.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210975.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210983.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210986.JPG 20160401_Fremlin43rdFrontYard_yama-zakuraSeedling_Cutler_P1210988.JPG
     
  17. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    Just bumping this with some bud photos. The tree in the back yard is so attractive, distinctive, seems easy to grow, does well here. @Douglas Justice, you don't think it would be worth seeing if clones would remain stable enough to name it and put it out there?
    Mountain cherry seedling_Fremlin43rd_Cutler_20240312_170221.jpg Mountain cherry seedling_Fremlin43rd_Cutler_20240312_170608.jpg Mountain cherry seedling_Fremlin43rd_Cutler_20240312_171043.jpg

    Mountain cherry seedling2_Fremlin43rd_Cutler_20240312_171402.jpg Mountain cherry seedling2_Fremlin43rd_Cutler_20240312_171707.jpg
     
  18. Douglas Justice

    Douglas Justice Well-Known Member UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout Maple Society 10 Years

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    The Japanese hill cherry or yama-zakura is correctly Prunus jamasakura (syn. P. serrulata f. spontanea, P. spontanea, etc.). Like other cherries, this tree could likely be propagated from cuttings in July. Rooted cuttings would be identical with the parent tree (no "instability"—they would be clones).
    1. Could we get permission to do so?
    2. Does it differ significantly from other P. jamasakura planted in and around Vancouver to warrant being propagated?
    3. If it were propagated clonally, it could continue to be referred to merely as (a selection of) P. jamasakura or it could be given a cultivar name.
    4. What name?
     

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