I went to see this tree today and I'm sure I have not seen one like it before. Everything I've looked up has failed to match the characteristics. I wonder if it's a seedling. It is a stunning tree, doing a good job of competing with the Douglas fir for the canopy top. It also looks very healthy, except for the bit that has no flowers. I assumed that the flowers at peak bloom would have been white, but a neighbour said that they never got really white, were always a pale pink. I saw one flower that looked white, and even looks white in my not posted out-of-focus photo, but that could have faded to white before the petals started bleed out pink from the red centres. The neighbour also said that it has been in bloom for 10 days. That would put its blooming time at late mid-season, similar to 'Tai-haku', which have lost most of their flowers by now in this neighbourhood. Junglekeeper's photos capture most of the bits necessary for ID. I'm just adding more of the same. Here is the tree, the trunk, and the green bit that belongs to the tree but doesn't have any flowers. It didn't really seem to be a witches' broom; I don't know what the story is there. Here are flowers. They are 3cm in diameter, even this much past peak bloom. I ruled out Edo-higan for the blooming date, flowers more than 1.5-2.0 cm, and calyx not particularly small and not urceolate (no distinctly narrower mouth). The Edo-higan characteristics are from Kuitert, Japanese Flowering Cherries. There are a lot of cherries developing.
I thought the leaves were single-serrated from Junglekeeper's photo, but there are some leaves that are double-serrated. I see in some descriptions in Kuitert that leaf edges can vary like that. They do not have hairs on the leaf edges. The photos are to show hairs on the pedicels and very sparse hairs on the green calyx, and also the serrated sepals, fairly small green bud scales, and flower bractlets. This shows the root growth along the ground.
I'm interested in a tree that @Nadia White Rock just posted in Burnaby with a lot of flowers, when 'Akebono' have no flowers remaining, and with narrow petals like the ones here. Burnaby link.
I see a comment made by @Douglas Justice regarding a tree we never identified before it died: . If that is witches' broom, maybe the blooming time should be much less a factor in the ID, and same for the tree that Nadia found.
Still no positive id? I wonder if our resident cherry expert, Douglas Justice, has had a look at it. Or are you concluding it's a tree under stress?
@Junglekeeper, how about reminding us in the spring, early enough to try to catch the flowers before they've turned, particularly to get the flower colour.
I think I'm wrong about that. I think this is 'Somei-yoshino'. Some of the flowers are a little larger than I would have expected, but that was the case for the 'Somei-yoshino' trees at the UW Quad in Seattle. This tree is not grafted; that is consistent with its being that cultivar. Petals are relatively flat, not cup-shaped like 'Akebono' and no staminodes. As mentioned above, pedicels are slightly hairy; calyces are slightly serrated, both appropriate characteristics. The "stars" in the flower centres are about right for 'Somei-yoshino'. The only thing that throws me off is the amount of pink in the petals, but these flowers had just opened. I mentioned in a neighbourhood thread how quickly the flowers turned white on another 'Somei-yoshino', but the buds are pink; maybe I just caught this before they turned. Or, it's something else. What about a 'Somei-yoshino' seedling? The owner appeared while I was there. The tree was about the same size when he moved in in the late 1990's.
To this untrained eye I thought the tree looked the same as its smaller neighbour several houses down the street to the west, thinking they were both 'Akebono'.
Here is that 'Akebono' tree. The third photo is over-cropped to show a couple of staminodes, which occur on 'Akebono', not on 'Somei-yoshino'. Of course, not finding a flower with a staminode does not prove that there are none on the tree. Here is the 'Akebono' across the street at bit east. Repeating the blossom photos for a side-by-side comparison, the tree in question is on the left; 'Akebono' second; I think these two are the most ambiguous, though the second has much darker buds. The first photo here is from the tree in question, and I think these flowers look very different from those in the second photo above, but they also look different from the blossom photo immediately above it from the same tree. I even thought I had mixed up which tree those first flowers belong to, but I can see the fir tree behind them in the uncropped photo. The second photo below is from as similar-looking an 'Akebono' I could find, on a very young tree at another location. The uncropped photo does show a staminode. Some of the petals on the tree in question seem so narrow, I considered whether it was 'Pandora', but that has smaller flowers, the petals don't overlap when flowers are fully open, and I don't think that is supposed to have hairs on the pedicels.
Today there were hints of the red flare that was seen in last year's flowers. I wonder if it'll increase as the bloom continues. Another thing that appears to differ from other trees is the way the flowers emanate from the branch as seen in a photo in the first post (first row, second photo) and a photo in the second post (second row, second photo - the one with the blue sky in the background). Reminds me of a test tube cleaner.
Yes, that will increase. These flowers are looking very 'Somei-yoshino'-like to me. I looked closely at two 'Somei-yoshino' today and am feeling more confident of that ID. I can't say I understand the test tube cleaner bit. Unless you mean that the flowers are along the branch rather than in balls. I think both 'Somei-yoshino' and 'Akebono' do that sometimes, and have flowers in balls other times, can be both formations on the same tree. Here are 'Somei-yoshino' photos from 2014, 38th and Collingwood.
