I hate to call a cherry tree ugly, but it's a shame with such lovely setting that it's not a tree that can inspire more excitement. I don't see any cluster of dead buds in the photo, though, so it seems to have come through the February freeze well enough. Glad to see it has one other person interested in it.
Cherry Pink in Kitsilano - 'Okame' and 'Whitcomb' both at peak bloom I have to take back what I said in the previous posting. It was just early - the 'Okame' trees in Kits are in full bloom now and they seem to look about as good as ever. This was not a bright, sun-shiny day, so the teeny flowers don't really show up from any distance in the photos, but it was easy to see that they were in bloom. Here is the one on West 6th at Stephens. There is only one limb now, but it was low-grafted and there are shoots emerging from the trunk. And the 'Okame' on Country Lane (east of Maple) that @Willard posted. The 'Whitcomb' in Delamont Park on West 6th at Maple is less than two blocks away. It's very showy. Some people I talked to as I walked by on West 6th told me to go look at it. I was playing with Portrait mode on my Android phone camera.
What is it with 'Pandora' owners? I have not been keeping up with this pair of trees on West 6th between Cypress and Maple, don't know when they were topped. Maybe there's a Pandora Club and members get together to discuss how they can disfigure these nice trees. The used-to-be nice ones in Kerrisdale I think might even have been topped again. I refuse to photograph them. And I'm not doing these any more either. 'Pandora' are fairly easy to identify by their narrow petals which don't overlap, don't form a cup.
‘Stellata’ also blooming now at the Museum of Vancouver. One of the four trees next to the Planetarium is not doing too well, but the other three are hanging in there. The flowers really are star-shaped with pointed petals.
Thanks to Wendy Cutler for leading the way to this stately ‘Somei-yoshino’ near the Maritime Museum. First time I’ve seen it.
Impressive ‘Akebono’ blooming now at the Museum of Vancouver. These trees are at the back of the museum, facing False Creek and English Bay.
These are clearly 'Akebono', petaloid and all in the blossom photo. So much for my theory of knobbly twigs (as shown in the same photo) being characteristic of 'Somei-yoshino'.
I enjoyed the cherry scouting so much at Vanier Park, that I returned the very next day. This time via the False Creek Ferry from the Aquatic Centre to the Maritime Museum. It’s a one zone fare and it sure beats parking your vehicle. I highly recommend the excursion. Lots to see. You cannot miss the ‘Somei-yoshino’ near the Maritime Museum. A nice walk to the Museum of Vancouver entrance and you will see the Star Cherry trees - at peak bloom now. Nearby is another ‘Somei-yoshino’, between the Museum and the observatory. Continuing on to the back of the Museum of Vancouver you will be greeted by ‘Akebono’ in full bloom. And then back to the Maritime Museum for your return ferry.
Well, actually I edited last year's posting to make the quoted comment, after seeing that I said one was 'Akebono', but on March 25 this year, I did have questions about the ID of some of these trees, particularly since I had recently read @eteinindia (Mariko's) comment about 'Somei-yoshino' having white buds, but Mariko was the first to post that these trees at Kits Beach on Arbutus Street near the tennis courts were 'Somei-yoshino', and I was convinced today on April 5 that they are 'Somei-yoshino'. Here are the bud photos I took on March 25 and the flower photos from today. Three of the trees have a lot of suckers from the ground around the tree. I was most confused because tree1 had such dark buds, and tree4 looked so different in habit from the others. Tree1 - furthest north, with dark red buds Tree 2 Tree 3 Tree 4, the most nicely situated with space around it, has the nicest shape.
April 3, 2025 W6th and Balaclava - 'Akebono' On the way to McBride Park, went to go see these trees on Balaclava. The west side of the street wasn't anywhere near full bloom but the east side had popped. Noting from prior posts & the map that the west side are 'Afterglow', which explains why they hadn't bloomed yet. W5th between Blenheim & Trutch - 'Akebono' Realizing now that I also saw the really large 'Akebono' listed on the Neighbourhood map that @wcutler posted about here: https://forums.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/threads/kitsilano.36716/page-15#post-436373 I remarked to my mom how absolutely huge it was! Sadly didn't have time to take any close-ups though.
April 3, 2025 McBride Park Playground - 'Somei-yoshino' & 'Akebono'? Tree 1 - 'Somei-yoshino' I was surprised at how massively tall this tree is, but it's too bad it wasn't at full bloom. It was also pretty cloudy. When we drove by on W4th on April 5th, I could see that it looked it like had popped quite nicely though :) Sadly we weren't able to stop to go see it. Tree 2 & Tree 3: The Neighbourhood Maps indicated that there were 2 'Somei-yoshino' and 1 'Akebono' at this spot, but when I looked up the trees on the City of Vancouver's Public Tree database, all 3 are tagged as 'Yoshino Cherry'. I didn't have time to look at the trees up-close so I didn't label them with a cultivar.
I have tried sending corrections to the city for trees on their database, but they do not take corrections from me and then they stop talking to me, or at least that has been my past experience, and I no longer try. It is, however, not uncommon for a group of what are supposed to be the same trees to come in to the supplier with one that is different. And they often arrive in winter with no identifying characteristics, so they get recorded as what was supposedly delivered, and that ID lives on forever. If you're identifying trees, though, it's important to not assume that a group of three or eight trees are all the same, though when I started as a scout, I always made that assumption. Next year if you are here when 'Shirotae' are in bloom, check the trees in front of Sutton Place Hotel downtown on Burrard St south of Robson. There is one 'Ukon' in the group of eight trees. Surely, that was not meant to be the case. On West 3rd Ave east of Burrard, in a whole block of 'Kanzan', there was one 'Pink Perfection'. I don't know if it's still there. The whole blocks of pink 'Kanzan' with one tree with single white flowers is a different story. The white trees started life as 'Kanzan', but the mazzard cherry rootstock took over the whole tree. All that being said, I could have been mistaken on the 'Akebono' ID.
When I saw these trees, I thought that Tree 4 was 'Akebono' because of how much more pink it was than the other trees, but looking at @wcutler's post, perhaps it was just the way I was looking at it. I saw these the day before Wendy did. April 4, 2025 Kitsilano Beach Tennis Courts - 'Somei-yoshino' & Oshima-zakura Using Wendy's naming, 'Somei-yoshino' Tree 1: 'Somei-yoshino' Tree 3: 'Somei-yoshino' Tree 4: Oshima-zakura I compared the Oshima-zakura and 'Somei-yoshino' flowers too:
April 4, 2025 Kitsilano Beach Park Area - 'Akebono' The intersection of Cornwall Ave & Yew St was very pretty :) There were also a number of younger trees in the parking lot just south of the Kits Beach Tennis Courts, and I presume they are 'Akebono' but we ran out of time for me to check them.
Not so different from above, but the sepals look very different, and note the serrations on the sepals of the Oshima -zakura (not a cultivar, so no single quotes). Thanks for the comparison.
I had thought the petals were slightly longer on the Oshima-zakura as well, though it's hard to tell in the photo. Fixed! Cultivars have single quotes, species don't have quotation marks?
Right. But Oshima-zakura is not exactly a species name either. It's sort of a phrase, cherry from Oshima, and the "O" is only upper case because Oshima is a place name. Species names are in Latin, and they are in italics (with no quotes). So the species Prunus sargentii is what we are calling o-yama-zakura (big mountain cherry), because we are using Japanese names, where the trees are originally from Japan.
