This is not a question. Douglas Justice did a write-up and photos on Akebonos for the April 6, 2007 Botany Photo of the Day, so that’s where to find out about those. One thing to add: This cultivar is often confused with Somei-Yoshino. Some distinguishing features are listed under the Somei-Yoshino thread. Somei-Yoshinos have not been planted recently in Vancouver, so it's a fairly safe guess to call young trees that look like this Akebonos.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Well, there may as well be some photos here. These are from 2007.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- This is a great staminode shot, if I say so myself, for showing how the staminode is related to the stamens. This is from a young tree on Pendrell in the West End of Vancouver, March 28, 2008.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Maybe this is a better staminode shot from the Burrard Station trees - all the blossoms in this photo seem to have them, but the one on the right shows the relationship to the stamens so clearly.
Re: Akebono - Autumn colours, three trees Here are some autumn colours, three trees in a row perpendicular to the English Bay seawall. One has not turned yet, one is completely turned, and the third is two-thirds turned, one third completely green. I thought when trees were grafted that they put a top on a different bottom, but it looks like this might have been two or three tops grafted on? It's beginning to dawn on me that trees have individual differences just like people do, so trees of the same cultivar can develop at different rates, but this would be like one arm developing differently from the way the other arm develops. The green leaves in the first photo looked like the yellow leaves - it didn't seem to be rootstock growth.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Here is an ungrafted Akebono youngster that has quite a different habit from what we're used to seeing. It's growing straight up with what looks like a single leader, the way Aviums do, but it has an Akebono label (thank you Parks Board) and is budding out now like the other Akebonos in the city. Here are some more West End young Akebonos that seem to not be grafted. The locations are in the file names you see when you mouse over the photos.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- How much variation can there be in these things? I'm going to use Douglas's words from the Kanzan vs Pink Perfection posting to haunt him: All I'm going on now to identify Akebonos is that staminode (extra petal thing in the centre of the occasional blossom), but Kate, in the Strathcona posting (the one that comes up and the following one), and today David Tracey, on our walk, remarked on how different some young trees look from the older ones that I've been claiming are the same cultivar. Here's a photo of a tree that David says is not likely to spread out, but it has Akebono blossoms. Sorry about the brilliant (not) camera angle - I hope you can see that it's very upright - the wispy bits to the side are from a tree behind it). I posted a younger one that shape in the previous posting here, which came with an Akebono name tag. "Die gestalt" says "different tree". What gives? Are these all Akebono? Are there new and improved Akebono that just don't get a new name?
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Here's a leaf photo from the known Akebonos on Graveley at Lillooet Streets in Vancouver.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Note my posting on April 18 last year, of the young presumably Akebono with the very upright appearance. Here's a young tree I saw yesterday (March 6) with a very horizontal appearance. This is the shape I think of for older 'Akebono'; young trees do seem usually to be more martini-glass shaped. The number of petals is more variable than I'd thought. This 'Akebono' has lots of blossoms that seem almost double, with extra petals as well as staminodes, but on other trees we saw today that I swore were 'Akebono', we had to look hard to find a single staminode, and no double blossoms at all.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- I've heard a lot of talk lately about how 'Somei-yoshino' look white and 'Akebono' are more pink, and that's how to distinguish them. Sorry, that won't work. In the Akebono vs Somei-Yoshino thread, it does say as much, but there's not much mention of that here. What does seem to be the case is that when 'Akebono' are open and pink, nearby 'Somei-yoshino' are white. In spite of what I said in that thread I linked to above, I think that's primarily because the 'Somei-yoshino' open about three days earlier than the 'Akebono'. As well, 'Somei-yoshino' turn white more quickly when they open than 'Akebono'. As they age, though, 'Akebono' do turn bright white. In the first photo, the middle tree (it's quite a ways toward the back) is 'Somei-yoshino' and the other two are 'Akebono'. The trees in the next two photos are 'Akebono'. Where the 'Akebono' have been open for several days, they are entirely white. What happens next is that any 'Somei-yoshino' blossoms that hang on the trees will start to get pink centres before the 'Akebono', so the more white trees will be the 'Akebono'.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- In a fit of rumination, Douglas Justice had quite a bit to say about how environmental and physiological conditions can affect the appearance of 'Akebono'. That was in the If these are corymbs, then can this be 'Somei-yoshino'? thread. Here's an example of a very pink-looking 'Akebono' just opening, on the SW corner of 16th and Marine Dr. I walked all the way over there (well, across the street, but it was a complicated street to cross) to see what I thought was a new-to-me pink pendula sort of tree, so was actually disappointed to find that it was just an 'Akebono' that seems to have had a hard life. On the other end of the colour spectrum are the 100 young 'Akebono' trees at David Lam Park, which I posted in the Downtown blog. There are a few trees that were still very pink, as seen in the background here, so I was convinced all the others must be 'Somei-yoshino', but they're really 'Akebono' too.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Here's the description from Ornamental Cherries of Vancouver, by UBCBG's Douglas Justice.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Not sure if you want non-Vancouver shots, but here is an old tree labelled 'Akebono' at the Royal Botanical Garden in Hamilton ON. The pink behind is 'Accolade'.
Re: Akebono - billowy pink fading to white, single-looking semi-double blossoms, mid- Thanks. I appreciate having a nice example of how white 'Akebono' can look.
One of the young seemingly ungrafted 'Akebono' trees in the West End in Vancouver is claiming its horizontal space. I hope the Parks Board lets it keep that. I have to laugh every time I hear @Douglas Justice describe 'Akebono' as having an upright, "V" shape (he does add: becoming spreading). He's obviously looking at the bones, and all I see are the horizontal branches.
