Billerica Public Library

The sakura obsession, the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms, Naoko Abe

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-362) and index

contains biographical information

platesmapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

The sakura obsession

bibliography

1042098724

Naoko Abe

the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry blossoms

"Collingwood 'Cherry' Ingram first fell in love with the sakura, or cherry tree, when he visited Japan on his honeymoon in 1907. So taken with the plant, he brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England, where he created a garden of cherry varieties. In 1926, he learned that the Great White Cherry had become extinct in Japan. Six years later, he buried a living cutting from his own collection in a potato and repatriated it via the Trans-Siberian Express. In the years that followed, Ingram sent more than 100 varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe, from Auckland to Washington. As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, the narrative follows the flower from its adoption as a national symbol in 794, through its use as an emblem of imperialism in the 1930s, to the present-day worldwide obsession with forecasting the exact moment of the trees' flowering"--, Publisher's description

part 1. The birth of a dream: Family ties ; Mayfair-by-the-Sea ; Triumphs and tragedies ; Enforced seclusion ; Japan beckons ; The rising sun ; The birds and the bees ; Ingram's war ; Birth of a dream -- part 2. Creation and collection: Twin quests ; The Dejima doctors ; Hunting plants ; Creation and collection ; The Hokusai Collection -- part 3. Saving the sakura: Pilgrimage ; Twin pines ; Cherry Meccas ; Guardian of the cherries ; Wild-cherry hunting ; Saving the sakura ; Ingram's warning -- part 4. Taihaku's homecoming: The restoration quest ; Taihaku's homecoming ; Gambling with success ; A fairy-tale garden ; "Obscene" kanzan ; The cherry evangelist ; Darwin versus the Church ; The sounds of war -- part 5. Falling blossoms: Cherry blossom brothers ; Flowers of mass destruction ; Emperor worship ; The sakura ideology ; The Somei-yoshino invasion ; 100 million people, one spirit ; The cherry and the kamikaze ; Falling blossoms ; Tome's story -- part 6. Dark shadows: Children at war ; Black Christmas ; Protecting Benenden ; Ornamental cherries ; Dark shadows ; Cherries of a "traitor" ; Britain's cherry boom ; Ingram's "royal" cherries ; The Somei-yoshino renaissance -- part 7. Cherries of reconciliation: A garden of memories ; A peaceful death ; The Grange after Ingram ; Home and abroad ; The next generation of sakuramori -- Cherries of reconciliation -- Epilogue: Millennia trees ; The great wall of cherry blossoms -- Appendices: A: Key cherry varieties and wild cherry names ; B: Cherry blossom viewing locations