Identification: Horizontal spreading tree with white petal and bronze-green leaves(1)

I found two horizontal spreading trees with 5 white petals and bronze-green leaves at NE corner of Montgomery Park at West 43 Ave & Oak Street, Vancouver.

Located in front of a house at 1033 West 43rd Ave, Vancouver, Google map: Google Maps

Basic info: 3 meter high and 6 meter wide; bronze-green leaves; flowers: pale pink open flat 4.0 cm across, with 5 white round petals with notch, rare with one extra staminode, in corymbs of 4~6 flowers, peduncle 2 cm and pedicel 2 cm; no hair, stained red at flower base before wither, short stigma, narrow purple calyx-tube, narrow sepal

 

Horizontal spreading tree with white petal and bronze-green leaves(2)

 

Horizontal spreading tree with white petal and bronze-green leaves(3)

 

Joseph, of the four trees there, I see in the Oakridge thread that you posted the two taller ones as 'Choshu-hizakura', which I thought was pretty convincing when I went to see them after you phoned me. I don't see any difference among the four trees, except for the shape.

 

Good scouting, Joseph! I visited the site this morning on my way to work. I agree that the taller ones are 'Choshu-hizakura', but the horizontal ones are quite different. The flowers are smaller and lighter in colour, with fewer staminodes, shorter pistils and less elaborated floral bracts. The leaf margins are more significantly serrated and more obviously hair-tipped. I've been looking but cannot find a good match.

 

Can they be Sendai-shidare? But they have few staminodes.

 

I think the flowers are smaller and too pink and the sepals are not as linear as they are in 'Sendai-shidare', but the crown shape is certainly similar.

 

I'm not convinced yet, but it was practically dark when I first saw them. I've gone back now, and am adding some comparison photos.

These are from Susanna's tree, the only 'Choshu-hizakura' we previously knew. In the fourth photo, I was trying to make the point that some of the branches are horizontal, and some are upright. Even in the out-of-focus third photo, you can see a strongly horizontal branch at the lower right.


These are the four trees at Montgomery Park. I've numbered them 1, 2, 3 and 4.


Here is Tree 1, a wide tree and Tree 2, a tall tree. In this photo, the flower stems of the wide tree look much shorter, thicker and more green than those of the tall tree (the one assumed to be like Susanna's, which I think looks intermediate to these two). But see the photo from tall tree 4, which I think has stems more similar to the wide tree 1 in this area of the tree. The second photo shows Tree 1, the wide tree, with the limb cut off that might have made it a tall tree. I'm not at all convinced that the wide trees are inherently short wide trees. There are a lot of dead areas on tree 4, and tree 2 looks like it could easily end up dying at the top and being pruned to look like trees 1 and 3.


In each photo below are trees 2 and 3, tall tree and a wide tree


This is tree 4, a tall tree.

We know 'Choshu-hizakura' fade from pink to white, so it doesn't seem much of an issue for me that the ones with the more pink flowers have leaves more bronze. The wide trees might just be a few days ahead. We certainly see lots of groups of the same cultivar where some trees in the group are days ahead of the others. And we see trying to compare 'Somei-yoshino' to 'Akebono' that aging 'Akebono' flowers are as white as 'Somei-yoshino' and get to be around the same size.
Fewer staminodes - some 'Akebono' trees have them on every 10th flower and others on every 100th, some flowers have one, some trees have lots of flowers with several.

I have not addressed these points at all, as I don't think I captured anything that demonstrates them or refutes them.

 

Also, unpruned 'Sendai-shidare' branches would hit the ground. Those have very strongly weeping, long weeping branches. Also, the contorted branching of 'Sendai-shidare' seems to be characteristic.

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 1.
Flower size

Wide trees - the wide trees had many flowers that were smaller than shown here. But they all had some flowers that were 4cm in diameter.


Tall trees - the tall trees had a few flowers that seems to be 4.5cm, most at 4cm, and generally, no flowers as small as there were on the wide trees.

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 2.
Bud scales

Wide trees - the bud scale size seemed to vary a lot. It was harder to photograph the ones that were smaller and more congested, which I think I remember being more on the wider trees.


Tall trees

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 3.
Bracts

Wide trees - I'm not at all sure I captured what Douglas was noticing.


Tall trees

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 4.
Leaves

Wide trees


Tall trees - these leaves were not as easily accessible. I owe thanks to the caretaker Jacue who twice got out his ladder and took a cutting for me (so tree 4 photos were taken on his car).

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 5.
Pistil length

Wide trees - this is the only aspect that looked pretty different to me, with the pistil always longer than the stamens on the tall trees but varying in length on the wide trees. Our book shows 'Choshu-hizakura' pistils shorter than the stamens (so, matching the wide trees). The pistils on the wide trees were also slighter than on the tall trees. I already said I thought the wide trees have older flowers, and I wonder if that makes a difference.

Wide trees


Tall trees

 

I am doing six postings comparing various aspects of the tall trees vs. the short wide trees. This is posting 6.
Miscellaneous

Extra petals

Wide tree


Tall tree




The trees
Tree1 and Tree3 are the wide ones

Missing limbs on wide tree - this tree seemed to be missing three large limbs


Tree2 and Tree4 are the tall ones

 

Are these Choshu-hizakura cherry trees too?

Two short cherry trees with lighter Choshu-hizakura flowers are blooming now.

But these two short trees have horizontal branches with more flower balls at the end of the thin branches.

Douglas, Wendy or anyone, this will be the prime time to visit and identify them this year!!

They are located at the NE corner of Montgomery Park in front of a house at 1033 West 43rd Ave, Vancouver.

 

In the original thread,
Identification: - Choshu-hizakura - pink single with extra petals, was Please help to identify
where we identified Susanna's tree, the first of these we found, Mariko Izaki commented:

So one possibility could be that the short ones are Mursaki-zakura (would be 'Murasaki-zakura') and the tall ones, that bloom later, are the 'Choshu-hizakura' (Douglas concurred on the ID of the taller ones).
Another similar tree in the running in the first thread was 'Kenrokuen-kumagai'.

 

Data from 2017. These photos are all from Shirley Willard, from April 22 unless indicated. Last year I compared various aspect of the trees at Montgomery Park. This time around, I am taking Douglas Justice’s statement in posting #5 and comparing the characteristics he mentioned with Susanna’s tree and each of the Montgomery Park trees, which are named by their number, I thought I used the same numbering system I used last year for Montgomery Park, but as I reread that, that doesn't seem to be the case. This year, trees 1 and 4 are the tall ones, presumed to be ‘Choshu-hizakura’; 2 and 3 are the shorter ones, supposedly the ones in question.

Here are Susanna's tree (W27th and Ash) and the Montgomery Park trees, numbered 4,3,2,1 in this photo.


Flowers – not measured. This year we looked for more or fewer staminodes.

Susanna’s, April 18 and April 22


Tree 1 (tall tree)


Tree 4 (tall tree)


Tree 2 (short tree)


Tree 3 (short tree)

 

2017 data continued.
Here are pistils

Susanna’s


Tree 1 (tall tree)


Tree 4 (tall tree)


Tree 2 (short tree)


Tree 3 (short tree)

 

2017 data:
Floral bracts

Susanna’s


Tree 1 (tall tree)


Tree 4 (tall tree)


Tree 2 (short tree)


Tree 3 (short tree)

 

2017 data:
Leaf margins

Susanna’s


Tree 1 (tall tree)


Tree 4 (tall tree)


Tree 2 (short tree)


Tree 3 (short tree)

 

Janice Lin sent these photos taken by Jacqueline Lee of the first flowers open on the two short trees. I think Janice plans to send photos until we come up with and ID.

 

Jacqueline Lee's photos from April 11; the short trees are in bloom now.

 

Janice Lin has sent these photos by Sunny Chen taken April 14. Janice says they are of the short trees.

 

All the postings so far have shown the short trees in question and the taller ones assumed to be 'Choshu-hizakura' on the same date in each posting. The short trees open earlier, so are farther advanced, and generally have appeared more white. When I approached these trees on April 17, 2020, except for the obvious shape difference, the tree colours appeared very similar. So I wondered if I were to remove the date aspect from my posting, and were to post photos taken around the same time of development, whatever the year, whether the trees would look more similar. It turns out in some aspects they do, and some aspects they do not.

Here is a photo showing all four trees, and the numbering I have given them all in this posting, Tree1 on the left, short trees 2 and 3 in the middle, and Tree4 on the right.

In each of these two photos, flowers from tall Tree1 are on the left side of the photo and from short Tree2 are on the right side.

It appears in these photos that the short trees have flowers that are more in balls, while they are more evenly spread out on the branches on the tall trees. But I have had to accept in my posting on Identification: - What ornamental rootstock on this 'Akebono'?
that the rootstock growth and the main tree are both 'Akebono' in spite of the following differences:
- blooming time (rootstock is a week earlier)
- flower size (rootstock flowers are larger)
- amount of petaloids (usual for 'Akebono' on the main tree, almost none on the rootstock - Douglas Justice found the only one ever seen)
- arrangement of the flowers (balls on the main tree, more spread out on the rootstock)
- number of flowers in the inflorescences (generally 2 for the rootstock, 3 or 4 for the main tree)
- timing of flowers with leaves (rootstock has leaves with flowers; the main tree blooms before the leaves)
And those were only the things I noticed. Regarding timing, one of the obvious differences here, I have definitely seen a one-week difference in blooming time of the new little 'Akebono' grove on the south side of Georgia at Stanley Park.

I am wondering about the trunks on these and how much that contributes to the differences. I will ask that question in my next posting.

In all the following sets of two photos, the short tree is on the left; the tall tree is on the right. The photographer is only noted for the ones that are not my own.

Flower colour
Both trees with white-ish flowers, pink-tinged
20170421 photo by Joseph Lin; 2020o417

20200411 photo by Jacqueline Lee, 20200413 photo by Anne Eng

But these are also early flowers, short trees opening white
20200408 photo by Jacqueline Lee, 20200413 photo by Anne Eng, cropped

These are late flowers, both trees looking similar
20200416 photos by Anne Eng


Petals- veining or not
20200411 photo, no petal veining; 20200417 photo with veined petals


Leaf margins
20170422 photo by Shirley Willard; 20200417


Bracteoles, budscales
20170422 both, photos by Shirley Willard


Newer limbs
20200417 both