Re: Ubc Several Okame cherry trees are blooming at the parkade entrance by the UBC Asian Centre. I was excited by the first sighting.
I wanted to post Okame leaves, but I see we didn't even have a thread started for this cultivar. I've copied Joseph Lin's posting from the UBC Neighbourhood Blogs for the photos. In that forum, Douglas Justice wrote You can also see the influence of Prunus incisa in the doubly serrate leaves. I'm going to just quote from Douglas's Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver book for the description: A modern hybrid valued primarily for its small stature and dark flowers, ‘Okame’ displays a tight, rounded crown. ‘Okame’ is readily recognized in flower because of its unusually narrow flowers, which are borne in large, drooping clusters and show the prominent reddish calyx tube to advantage. Normally a large shrub or small tree, this cultivar often shows considerable disease susceptibility when grown on mazzard rootstock. TREES uncommon shrub or tree with a rounded crown branching twiggy LEAVES new leaves bronze to reddish green quickly turn green FLOWERS flowering late March to early April flowers to 2 cm across delicate, pointed buds open clear, pale pink from a distance the flowers appear red because of the prominent calyx tube and sepals petals narrow and notched, fading to white centres stained red emerge before leaves in corymbs of 3 to 5 pendulous flowers, abundantly produced and often tightly packed together SEPALS 5, prominently triangular CALYX-TUBE red, funnel-shaped
There are six of these trees at Haggens supermarket in Ferndale, just west of the Axton Road/Main St freeway exit. I thought they were were a lot healthier than ours, but then when I got home and saw the photos, I saw the brown rot.
We don't get much chance to bliss out on good-looking 'Okame' blossoms, so these are just the same Axton Road Haggens Supermarket planting as in the previous photo, two years later, on March 15. The trees along the building seem quite a bit healthier than the ones separating the cars on the parking lot. The timing seems to be maybe a week earlier than two years ago, as they were pretty much at peak bloom this time.