A warm weekend with daytime highs over 20 degrees. The Somei-Yoshino cherry blossoms are still hanging in there, but the air around them and the ground beneath them are filled with fallen petals. Families are out on the grass in the park, eating the last sakura-mochi sweet bean rice cakes of the season, and enjoying what is called a Sakura-fubuki or ‘Cherry Blossom Blizzard’.
This is great weather for a satoyama bike ride. In fact, my favorite cherry blossoms are just now coming into bloom. Out here in the Hokuso countryside we cyclists enjoy a special type of road that is great fun to ride on. These roads run along the edges of the narrow valleys, with rice paddies on one side and the wooded slopes on the other. They are just wide enough for a single tiny keitora truck to pass, and have almost no traffic. Some of them are paved, but many are still dirt.
On Saturday I was cruising along one of these roads when I came upon a beautiful cherry tree in full bloom. The flowers were white, maybe a tad bigger than those of the Somei-yoshino, but they were mixed in with fresh green leaves. This was an Oshima-zakura (Cerasus speciosa) a native Japanese tree with a very limited natural distribution determined by the Kuroshio or Japan Current, an immense stream of warm water that flows along Japan’s southeastern Pacific Ocean coast.
The Japan Current, also called the Black Current, passes through the Izu Islands south of Tokyo; and also washes the southern half of the Izu, Miura and Boso Peninsulas. This pretty much matches the natural distribution of the Oshima-zakura. In the Hokuso region, far from the Pacific Ocean, it does grow wild, but may have been deliberately introduced. The wood is soft and easy to work, and the leaves can be pickled for use in sakura-mochi. The Oshima-zakura is one of the parent species of the Somei-Yoshino, and serves as the stock for various double-petaled ornamental varieties.
In a nearby valley was another cherry tree growing wild in the slope woodlands. Even at a distance this one could be seen to have a stronger reddish tint than the Oshima-zakura. This was a different native species, the yama-zakura (Cerasus jamasakura). Like the Oshima-zakura, the flowers and new leaves appear at the same time; but the new leaves are reddish rather than green, giving the tree a stronger tint.
The yama-zakura is Japan’s most common native cherry tree, growing wild from countryside woodlands well up into the hills and mountain slopes. It is also widely planted as an ornamental. In fact, until the explosive spread of the Somei-Yoshino in the 20th century, the yama-zakura was the premier cherry tree for flower viewing. The famous cherry trees at Yoshino Mountain in southern Nara Prefecture are mostly yama-zakura. Unlike the short-lived Somei-Yoshino, yama-zakura can live for many centuries, and grow to enormous size. Many villages throughout Japan protect and revere venerable cherry trees as part of their natural, cultural and spiritual heritages.
