Not showy, but there are signs of life on this tree located on the NorthEast corner of Nanaimo and Parker. Guessing Autumnalis Rosea, although some of the buds do look pretty white.
There are two possibilities here: 1. My idea is that 'Jugatsu-zakura' have white buds and 'Autumnalis Rosea' have pink buds is wrong Or 2. There is at least one 'Jugatsu-zakura' on this street. The flowers here seem to be opening white and aging pink. I think the ones you posted in the UBC thread look much more pink, even the ones that are not quite open yet. They are not opening white. I caution you to remember that so far, no-one agrees with me. [Edited]I think some of the trees on Nanaimo are 'Autumnalis Rosea', particularly the ones with the skinny trunks.
Structurally all the ones in these pictures posted here recently - unless I missed one - are 'Autumnalis Rosea'. Trees I saw in flower when I went to Britain one March fit depictions I have seen, wherein the 'Autumnalis' had thick, sparse twigs with a scattering of small, short-petalled flowers with fewer petals than 'Autumalis Rosea'. Even during the peak spring bloom the effect was sparse, the flowers undersized and underdeveloped in aspect, relative to 'Autumnalis Rosea'. The best reference I have seen to compare the two is the small, color photo illustrated Eyewitness tree handbook I mentioned during a previous discussion. The photo of the flowering sprigs (from the Hillier arboretum) presented side-by-side shows the same appearance as I saw at Wisley, where they had one of each flowering right next to one another. The handbook is still (or again) in shops because I saw an edition of it recently at a local independent garden center.
The pictures in that book (Coombes, Eyewitness Handbooks - Trees, Dorling Kindersley Limited, London, first American Edition, 1992) seem a little misleading. I think the 'Autumnalis' ('Jugatsu-zakura') is an autumn or winter cutting (sort-of implied in the comment "semidouble white flowers may open during winter") while the 'Autumnalis Rosea' is a spring cutting with new leaves, hence the longer pedicels and larger flowers. It's harder to argue with seeing them side-by-side, and you're saying that the appearance of 'Autumnalis' doesn't change much in the spring, and we should be checking for sparser and thicker branches than on 'Autumnalis Rosea'. Thanks for the reply.
You are clinging to a similarity between the two that isn't there. Whether the Eyewitness photos are concurrent or not the general appearance of each kind, relative to one another, is accurately conveyed. A tree that was in a Seattle park until the 1990s, was almost certainly 'Autumnalis'* was so odd looking with its light sprinkling of dinky flowers that it seems it may have been cut down because somebody at Parks didn't like it - instead of having deteriorated and died on its own. I have seen no other examples here, and I can understand why. *I saw it maybe once, driving by before it disappeared, did not have a chance to study it myself.
I've copied these postings here from the Hastings-Sunrise Neighbourhood Blog, as they apply to more than just that neighbourhood's trees.
You had me until that description for 'Jugatsu-zakura', which has always been my description for our 'Autumnalis Rosea'. I guess there's "dinky" and "dinkier".
Six years later, I'm not sure we even have any agreement on these trees on E 6th Avenue east of St. George. The flowers are very white, plenty dinky (smaller than these photos would suggest); to me they look exactly like the ''Autumnalis' picture in the Eyewitness Handbook on Trees mentioned in posting #4 (1992, p. 270), which we have decided to call by the Japanese name 'Jugatsu-zakura'. I can't say they pass the "thick sparse twigs" description. They certainly look different to me from the 'Autumnalis Rosea' I posted in the West End Neighbourhood - here they are again, with a crop from another photo showing pink buds. These look better than I have seen them for a few years.
