Today marks the first day of cherry blossom season in Tokyo, according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency. It’s reported here the whole nation’s attention has been focused for days on one particular tree considered to be the government’s cherry blossom bloom barometer. Cherry blossom season in Japan has arrived three days earlier than average and two days earlier than last year.

Here in Vancouver, we’re told the first 500 Japanese cherry trees were planted in the 1930’s, gifts from the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama. The Vancouver Park Board explains here “as the impact of cherry tree plantings began to reshape the city’s landscape, Vancouverites were soon smitten by their fleeting beauty, their clouds of blossoms, as they heralded spring’s arrival each year.” Today, there are reportedly 54 different varieties of flowering cherry trees in Vancouver neighbourhoods accounting for over 40,000 individual trees.

Yaletown (03-22-2015)

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”
– Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring”