What’s Flowering Now? March 29

The Japanese Meteorological Agency announced last week that the cherry blossoms in Tokyo were in bloom, officially kicking off the viewing season.

For a society that has a phrase in its language (sakura zensen) describing the specific front of warmth that blooms cherry blossoms, this is no small announcement.

An excerpt from In Transit, a blog from The New York Times:

Japan designates specific cherry trees across the country for monitoring and considers a region to be in bloom when at least five or six flowers can be counted on each of that region’s trees. When 80 percent of the trees’ flowers have opened, typically a few days later, an area is officially designated as in ‘‘full bloom.’’

While Japan and Portland have already had their fill of cherry blossoms, the moment of fleeting beauty is still set to arrive in America’s capital.

With a time-line of April 1-4, the schedule of events is extensive for Washington D.C. and its famous Cherry Blossom Festival.

Here is an excerpt from an anecdotal Washington Post story about how one U.S. president felt about the cherry blossoms:

Franklin D. Roosevelt was mad.

This whole problem with the cherry blossoms was nothing but a “flimflam” cooked up by the newspapers to boost advertising, the president told the White House reporters.

“Six hundred trees” doomed, he mocked, reading from some headlines. “Public aroused,” he quoted, “Ten Million-Dollar Project.” It was baloney. As for those women chained to the trees down by the Tidal Basin . . . they would be carted off along with their trees.

Harsh words from FDR. But this was the great “Cherry Tree Rebellion,” as one newspaper called it — one of the strangest and most passionate chapters in the now-almost 100-year history of the cherry blossoms in Washington.

Here are links to previous editions of the Friends of Trees, ‘What’s Flowering Now?’ series: March 8; March 13; and March 22.

Submit your own photos of flowering trees to [email protected].

–Toshio Suzuki