Identification: Ichihara-tora-no-o - Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

At the northeast corner of E.57 Avenue and Fraser Street (Sunset) on March 31, 2010, unidentifiable Double-White. Pale pink buds opening to pure white flowers, with emergent bronze-green new leaflets turning to green. Twenty-plus frilly-edged petals; prominent pistil (detected one double pistil); flowers in corymbs with short pedicels. No scent.

Older tree, with some damaged branches on one side, but still glows.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

Nice. It looks a bit like 'Ichiyo'.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

We thought not 'Ichiyo' because it's very white - no pink at all in the open blossoms, and the buds are a lighter pink, turning white before they open. The blossoms seem smaller than 'Ichiyo'. There seem to be more petals in the blossoms. And this one doesn't seem to have the hairs at the ends of the leaf edges that you can see in your (Douglas's) 'Ichiyo' photo.


Here is the double-white on the left and Willy Su's photo from a Vivian St 'Ichiyo' on the right.

The glands are at the same location on the leaf pedicels.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

Or Douglas, to use your line, if this is 'Ichiyo'


then what's this? I thought this tree at Canada Way and Smith was 'Ichiyo'.


The blossoms seem about the same size in the two photos, but they don't seem it in real life. The white ones seem a lot smaller.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

Clearly, I spoke too hastily. The Canada Way and Smith tree does look like 'Ichiyo'. The Fraser and 57th tree is very different, and interesting. It's obviously been pruned repeatedly from an early age, which is obscuring its natural form, but I'd guess that normally, it would be a wide-spreading tree. Pruning cherries for size control takes perseverance and usually results in a mess of misplaced branches and cankered stems. This tree looks remarkably clean. Of course, most people don't take pictures of diseased bits, or if they do, they usually don't post them. So maybe this is more disease prone than it appears in the photos. Besides inherent disease susceptibility, the presence of disease in a particular cultivar can also be a function of the rootstock on which it's grafted (or is it on its own roots?). I can't tell if the tree is grafted (no criticism implied—Anne's photos are excellent). The flower size, ragged petal margins and the way the petals are crowded in the centre of the flower is somewhat reminiscent of a chrysanthemum flowered cherry. I'll try to go by the tree sometime this weekend.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

It is more diseased than what we displayed. Here's a photo of the trunk - we couldn't tell if it was grafted. And a shot of the structure from the east side of the tree.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

Here is the E57/Fraser tree starting its bloom on April 23, 2011.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

What about Prunus serrulata 'Albo-plena'? I don't have a Japanese name for that.

The characteristics in Wybe Kuiter's Japanese Flowering Cherries (Timber Press, Oregon, 1999) on page 205 that seem to fit are:

- broadly spreading, thick branches barely ramify, full of short spurs
- corymbose inflorescence, four to five flowers
- peduncles and pedicels around 3cm
- buds faintly pink, opening pure white
- flowers to 4.0 cm in diameter, opening to a rather flat plane
- petals 18-21, with petaloids, slightly emarginate
- one pistil, much longer than the stamens
- filament extending above the yellow anthers
- no distinct transition from pedicel to calyx
- sepals triangular, unserrated, purple tinge
- flowering season late
- serration single; are there short aristate teeth?

Characteristics that don't seem to fit are:

- Underside of mature leaves are supposed to be markedly whitish - we haven't actually seen mature leaves
- I don't see dark red glands up to the tip of the leaf

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

But then on the same page as the previous description, Kuitert also says that there are two forms: "the gorgeous one that [Carrière] depicted is 'Ichihara-tora-no-o', and his less gorgeous form, this 'Albo Plena'." The 'Ichihara-tora-no-o' and 'Tora-no-o' are described on p. 262-266, and I would list everything I listed below from the description given. Our tree is a little sick. Might it have been gorgeous in its day? Tora-no-o means tiger's tail. I can't really tell if it does or doesn't look like a tiger's tail.

 

Re: What cherry? Double white, pink buds, green leaves, late mid-season

I think we can safely call this 'Ichihara-tora-no-o'. It is a beauty and fragrant, too.

 

Here are the stigmas protruding from the pink buds of Ichihara as per Kuitert.

 

Ichihara in bloom on May 1, 2011. Although not as strong as Shirotae, there was definitely a subtle fragrance to the blossoms.

 

Dark red glands up to the tip of the leaves - check. They're not all the way to the tippy-tip, though. Do we think this is close enough?

 

Yes, close enough.

 

Ichihara finishing its bloom on May 13, 2011. The first two photos show its particular branching characteristic: many short spurs ending in a terminal bud with leaf sprout. The third photo show the lighter (whitish) underside of a mature leaf.