A cherry gardener in Tokyo’s Ueno Park

Abstract

The cherry blossom spectacle in Tokyo’s Ueno Park relies on its Tokyo cherries, which is a particular cultivar also known as ‘Someiyoshino’ or Prunus × yedoensis. This paper delves into the history of this cherry display and the gardener Kawashima Gonbei (1840–97) who propagated and planted this particular cherry starting in the late nineteenth century. Gonbei announced that he named it ‘Yoshino’, but he cannot have been the first breeder of the Tokyo cherry. It was known already as Yoshino or ‘Yoshino-yama’ and propagated either by seed or by clone, and was famed among specialists from at least the 1820s. With the collapse of Japan’s feudal society, innovative, more liberal nursery releases and mass sales came into focus. Skilled in selecting, grafting, propagating and marketing, Gonbei mass released his easily grown, clonal Tokyo cherry. The oldest known Tokyo cherry in Koishikawa Botanical Garden could have been his ‘mother tree’. Whether this historic tree was planted by his ancestors is unknown, but Gonbei’s shrewd approach in marketing his Tokyo cherry might have been the very reason that he so far has remained somewhat obscured in history.

Full text

A CHERRY GARDENER IN
TOKYO’S UENO PARK
The cherry blossom spectacle in Tokyo’s Ueno
Park relies on its Tokyo cherries, which is a
particular cultivar also known as ‘Someiyoshino’
or Prunus × yedoensis. This paper delves into the
history of this cherry display and the gardener
Kawashima Gonbei (1840–97) who propagated
and planted this particular cherry starting in
the late nineteenth century. Gonbei announced
that he named it ‘Yoshino’, but he cannot have
been the first breeder of the Tokyo cherry. It was
known already as Yoshino or ‘Yoshino-yama’
and propagated either by seed or by clone,
and was famed among specialists from at least
the 1820s. With the collapse of Japan’s feudal
society, innovative, more liberal nursery releases
and mass sales came into focus. Skilled in
selecting, grafting, propagating and marketing,
Gonbei mass released his easily grown, clonal
Tokyo cherry. The oldest known Tokyo cherry
in Koishikawa Botanical Garden could have
been his ‘mother tree’. Whether this historic
tree was planted by his ancestors is unknown,
but Gonbei’s shrewd approach in marketing his
Tokyo cherry might have been the very reason
that he so far has remained somewhat obscured
in history.
Flowering cherries are something special for the
Japanese even when outside their home country.1
Perhaps the most exuberant expression of this
heartfelt folklore is the cherry flower celebration
in Ueno Park in Tokyo. Crowds eating, drinking
and singing karaoke, sitting on mats and sheets
spread out under the blossom clouds are a
boisterous reminder of how to really enjoy the
end of winter. This spectacular flower show just
above their heads comes mainly from the Tokyo
cherry (also known as ‘Someiyoshino’ or Prunus
× yedoensis).2 This particular cherry is easily
propagated while quickly growing into a proper
tree. By now it is the most widely planted cherry
within Japan and exceedingly popular elsewhere
in the world. But it all started in Ueno.
The success story of Ueno’s cherries is
very much the story of gardener Kawashima
Gonbei (1840–97), although the early history of
the Tokyo cherry is not yet fully clear, despite
academic research, opinionated journalism and
speculative blogs.3 Neither can this article give a
final answer to the question of the breeder, as the
tree originated in feudal times when gardeners
were operating anonymously in an intricate
division of labour, while wealthy owners would
hide their garden treasures for reasons of public
morale and mutual jealousy. However, a clear
picture emerges on how it began to spread
when we look closely into gardening history
and the history of the Tokyo cherry’s gardener,
Kawashima Gonbei. Using this approach this
research confirms that this cherry was a cultivar
named ‘Yoshino’ in feudal times and spread
through Tokyo as a clone released from the
Kawashima nursery after the collapse of the
shogun’s government.
cherries from yoshino
Cherry planting in ancient Japan had become a
symbolic action claiming power; it began in the
ninth century when the emperor planted a cherry
in front of his palace to replace a Chinese-style
plum. After power systems had shifted from
emperors to shoguns the practice remained. In
the old capital of Kyoto a new shogun brought
in cherries from Yoshino Mountain to the south,
where the emperor was exiled. Planting these
Yoshino cherries at an imperial garden in Kyoto
obviously asserted territorial claims. Botanically
speaking these were wild Japanese mountain
cherries (Prunus serrulata var. spontanea).4
Changing times brought a new feudal
dynasty of shoguns who set up their government
in 1603 far away from Kyoto. This dynasty is
often referred to as the Edo Period after the
name of the new capital city (it was to become
today’s Tokyo). In the new capital the shogun
planted Yoshino cherries again. Thus, wild
Japanese mountain cherries – in fact not brought
from the faraway lands of Yoshino Mountain
but locally grown from seed – came to be
deliberately planted in urban areas. Throughout
the Edo period there was planting along
strategic rivers and irrigation canals and also
around the Kan’ei-ji Temple, where graves and
memorials for deceased shoguns were located.
The temple was north-east of the shogun’s
main castle, a direction that in superstition was
believed to generate evil influence; the temple
with its cherries mitigated this and protected the
reigning shogun. When in bloom the public was
often allowed in to enjoy the flower season.5 By
the end of the nineteenth century most of the
cherries in the city were venerable, centuries-old
trees (Figure 1).6
Wybe Kuitert
"A cherry gardener in Tokyo’s Ueno Park"
Garden History 50,1 (2022): 106-114 (and cover)
ISSN 0307-1243

a cherry gardener in tokyo’s ueno pa rk
107
‘yoshino’ cherries i n ueno
After the last feudal shogun stepped down in
1867, Edo became modern Tokyo and Japan
entered an age of revolutionary industrial
modernization under the political and spiritual
protection of the new Meiji emperor installed
by progressive magnates and industrialists. The
shogun’s castle, refurbished as the palace of the
emperor, was now no longer secured by only
the Kan’ei-ji Temple with its cherries, but also
by civic institutions of the new nation. Under
modern Tokyo administration the grounds of
the temple were turned into a public space, the
Ueno Park with a new national museum, a zoo
and a National Museum of Nature and Science.
Official permission to use this semi-sacred
space anytime for public cherry parties came in
1869 even before the official designation as a
public park.7 In following decades masses of day
trippers came to the park when the cherries were
in bloom and numerous little restaurants and
tea houses made good business in blossom time.
Ueno became a famous tourist site, as evidenced
from photographs of the c.1890s (Figures 2 and
3).8
On the photographs, the cherry trees do not
look as old as the mountain cherries elsewhere
in the city (cf. Figure 1 with Figures 2 and 3),
as most of the cherry trees did not survive the
collapse of the feudal system, while the Kan’ei-
ji Temple buildings suffered from fire. In Ueno,
cherries other than Japanese mountain cherries
came into focus with an official survey of 1885–
86. These newly planted trees were locally known
as ‘Yoshino’ cherries, although officers were
well aware that they had no relation to Yoshino
Mountain but had been brought in by gardeners
from Somei village. The survey therefore called
them as ‘Somei-yoshino’, which is still the
Japanese name for today’s Tokyo cherry.9
the village gardeners o f somei
The Edo period saw an explosive enthusiasm
for gardens among feudal lords, competing with
each other with plants and design inventions,
supported by a widely functioning market for
garden produce.10 There were various centres,
neighbourhoods in the city or villages on the
outskirts that were focused on horticulture,
including the village of Somei, where each family
managed its own nursery. Scottish plant hunter
Robert Fortune (1812–80) visited ‘Su-mae-yah’,
as he called it, when Japan was still under feudal
Figure 1. Centuries-old Japanese mountain cherries along the water duct of Koganei, a village
just outside Tokyo. In front of the ageing cherries is a row of young trees planted in 1880 and
1881. Judging from the tree shape, the young transplants were ‘Yoshino’ cherries, apparently
removed later, as they are not seen in later photographs. Photo: Kusabe Kimbei, 1890s;
collection Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands, obj. no. RP-F-2001-7-1643-24

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garden history 50 : 1
Figure 3. Sightseers throng to view the cherries with tea houses in the distance in Ueno Park,
Tokyo. ‘Yoshino’ cherries in this photograph would have been planted two or three decades
earlier. Souvenir postcard, c.1900; Wikimedia Commons
Figure 2. A high-wheeler bicycle was for rent at the Yamato Tea House in Ueno Park, Tokyo, in
spring 1892; a few ‘Yoshino’ cherries have been planted for the visitors enjoying tea on the seats
covered with red sheets. Judging from the size of the trees, they will have been planted c.1870.
Photo: Tamamura Kozaburō; collection europeana.eu

a cherry gardener in tokyo’s ueno pa rk
109
control in the early 1860s. He describes his
October visit beginning with the many nurseries
lining the main street:
Park-like scenery, trees and gardens,
neatly-clipped hedges, succeeded each
other; and my attendant yakoneens11 at
length announced that we had arrived
at the village of Su-mae-yah. The whole
country here is covered with nursery-
gardens. One straight road, more than a
mile in length, is lined with them. I have
never seen, in any part of the world, such
a large number of plants cultivated for
sale. Each nursery covers three or four
acres of land, is nicely kept, and contains
thousands of plants, both in pots and in
the open ground. As these nurseries are
generally much alike in their features, a
description of one will give a good idea
of them all.
On entering the gateway there is a
pretty little winding path leading up to
the proprietor’s house, which is usually
situated near the centre of the garden,
On each side of this walk are planted
specimens of the hardy ornamental trees
and shrubs of the country, many of which
are dwarfed or clipped into round table
forms. The beautiful little yew (Taxus
cuspidata) which I formerly introduced
into Europe from China, occupies a
prominent place amongst dwarf shrubs.
Then there are the different species of
Pines, Thujas, Retinosporas, and the
beautiful Sciadopitys verticillata, all duly
represented. Plants cultivated in pots
are usually kept near the house of the
nurseryman, or enclosed with a fence of
bamboo-work. These are cultivated and
arranged much in the same way as we do
such things at home.12
To Fortune the nurseries were generally
much alike, but at least somewhere, somebody
was growing full-size cherries that could be
transplanted as root-balled trees. A later Japanese
report on current affairs sheds some light on the
gardener from the village that had grown this
‘Yoshino’ cherry:
In the Edo period there was an old and
lacerated gardener who was extremely
skilled; it was said he could graft a
bamboo on a tree as it were. He had
for many years spared no efforts and
pains to create new varieties of single-
flowered cherries. In fact the ‘Yoshino’
cherries in Mukōjima and Ueno were as
of a natural intelligence not only created
by him, but he had also made much
effort to propagate it, having in just a
few years already ten thousands on his
field. Thus he was the first one who sold
this variety. It is interesting to see that
he was able to market and sell this new
variety in a way not very different from
the modern western nursery firms that we
see today. But about naming this variety
he had apparently been in great trouble.
According to the ways of the world he
would of course have given it a name of
himself to add to his own fame. But then,
he said, it would have to be John’s Cherry
or Yokel Cherry, which for such a famed
blossom tree would be wastefully out of
taste. So audaciously this old gardener
named it ‘Yoshino’ and hid the fact
that it came from his own nursery while
actively spreading the false report that
it was straight from Yoshino Mountain.
His business strategy hit the target. At
the times, nobody had visited Yoshino
Mountain as there were no modern means
of transport, but everybody knew the lore
and famous poems of the mountain’s
cherries. Making clever use of this lack of
knowledge on how they actually looked,
he strategically sold his ‘Yoshino’ cherries
deceiving the public that eagerly went
into it. In an instance this cherry achieved
widespread acclamation, and a single
variety that was simply made by a Somei
gardener became something excelling
Nature itself as being from Yoshino
Mountain. It was as the famous history
of the monk Ten’ichibō who caused a lot
of uproar falsely stating that he was an
illegitimate son of the shogun himself ....
As an especially nice cherry it was planted
by almost anyone in his yard, as it also
adapted well to the soil conditions of the
Tokyo area.13
This report speaks clearly about a clonal
cultivar and a determined business sense that
accompanied the production and marketing
of this star plant, not only in Ueno but also
worldwide.14 A list advertising The Famous
Gardeners of Tokyo, dated October 1886, lists
two hundred and eighty-four gardeners who had
a flower shop, a horticultural or a landscaping
firm, including a separate category of twenty-
six nurseries specializing in root-balled trees.15
Among these twenty-six there is only one in the
Somei village: that of Kawashima Gonbei. It was
undoubtedly Gonbei, therefore, who provided
colleagues and the wholesale trade with his root-
balled ‘Yoshino’, the Tokyo cherry; likely he was
also selling directly for projects where he planted
trees himself. There is, for example, a mention of
Kawashima Gonbei hired by the Kan’ei-ji Temple
planting ‘Yoshino’ cherries in the grounds in
1858, long before it became the Ueno Park.16
If these trees suffered from fire at the collapse
of the shogun’s government these will at least
have produced regrowth from the stubs. It is
clear, however, that after these events Gonbei’s
‘Yoshino’ cherries entered the park in large
numbers. In post-feudal times root-balled trees
were a promising business in a liberal economy
where real estate development began to boom.

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garden history 50 : 1
The Tokyo cherry was a top seller, soon produced
all over the country by many others as well.
somei today
Kawashima Gonbei has not been forgotten
in the Somei village community, although all
nurseries have disappeared with modern urban
development. Most of the nursery land became
the Somei Cemetery in Komagome, in the
Toshima Ward of Tokyo.17 A section of the old
main road of the village remains as one of the
major thoroughfares through the fields now
packed with graves. Two florists are found today
at the entrance of the cemetery, close to this main
avenue. One of the shops, established in 1874, is
owned by the Kōnomori family. The late Kōnomori
Shōzō had been a locally well-known historian on
the Tokyo cherry and had been awarded with a
cherry prize.18 From his reports we learn that the
nursery Ōkō-en, ‘Cherry Fragrance Garden’, had
released the Tokyo cherry. The name and fame
of Ōkō-en are clearly established with Gonbei’s
grandson Kawashima Ginzō (1880–1915), who
propagated well over a hundred different named
cherries, including ‘Yoshino’, and selling them
commercially.19 Unfortunately he was not long-
lived, and all his sons died in their twenties,
meaning the end of the nursery. A longer-living
daughter and a former employee of the nursery
formed sources of oral history, while local temple
archives mention grandfather Kawashima Gonbei
as a cherry nurseryman.20
the oldest tokyo cherry
But was it really Kawashima Gonbei or his father
who had discovered this cherry, or had been the
first breeder? A clue might be the oldest known
Tokyo cherry in Japan, which stands halfway up
the slope at the entrance of Tokyo’s Koishikawa
Botanical Garden and is still in good health
(Figures 4 and 5).21 A photograph of 1906 exists
and a later report of 1935 on the declining
condition of this tree indicates that only young
root suckers were alive and that two remaining
leader stems had died; these had grown up from
three older stems that had withered away.22 An
Figure 4. The oldest Tokyo cherry is a centuries-old stub with several leader trunks, regrown
after the air raids of 1945 or more recently. Koishikawa Botanical Garden, Tokyo.
Photo: author, 31 March 2019

a cherry gardener in tokyo’s ueno pa rk
111
Figure 5. The tree shown in Figure 4 in a photograph taken in 1906. It is an ageing and multi-
stemmed tree in blossom towering above a few people; from F. Ramaley, ‘The Tokyo Botanical
Garden’, The Plant World, 9/11 (1906), pp. 251–8 (photo: Matsumura Jinzō)
Figure 6. A vendor carries a root-balled cherry
in full bloom. The cherry seems to be flowering
before the foliage is out and has budding
sprouts on the stem, two details typical of the
Tokyo cherry. Utagawa Hiroshige, woodblock
print dated 1861–62, from the series Tōto
sanjurokukei [Thirty-Six Views of the Eastern
Capital]; collection of the National Diet
Library
old Tokyo cherry easily regrows from a stub and
develops into a multi-stemmed tree if left to itself;
and in good growing conditions, such as in this
garden, can last for at least eighty to a hundred
years. Somewhere in the early nineteenth century,
therefore, an earlier generation of the tree seen
in the 1906 photograph began to develop.23 Was
this early generation a natural regrowth from an
even older tree, trained on purpose as a multi-
stemmed umbrella perhaps, or even planted as
a big root-balled, multi-stemmed tree from the
nursery? In any case this old Tokyo cherry was
planted in the garden when it was owned by
feudal lords of the Edo period.
Garden lovers in Edo bought their plants not
only at nurseries, such as in Somei, but also on
an open street market for garden plants, or from
vendors who could even carry root-balled cherries
around (Figure 6). But this particular cherry in
Koishikawa Botanical Garden would have been
bought from the Itō family of Somei, as it was
the sole official purveyor to the feudal lords.24

112
garden history 50 : 1
Figure 7. Hirose Ka’in painted the Tokyo
cherry as a strain slightly different from
today’s clone. ‘Yoshino’ from Ōkazukan,
A Scroll of Cherry Pictures, in Ogasawara
Saemon Jōryōken, Edo no hana kurabe
engei bunka no tōrai [Edo Flower
Competition: The Arrival of a Gardening
Culture] (Kyoto: Seigensha, 2008), p. 50
The Itō house was a well-established nursery for
many generations, they were well known because
of their plant catalogues that had been published
in earlier centuries. These advertise a full range
of garden plants, so it is obvious that the nursery
functioned as a wholesaler, not as grower or
breeder.25 That Itō sold this cherry does not
mean that he also procured it; rather, it means
that somebody else in Somei had grown it, so the
Kawashima family remains firmly in focus. Be
that as it may, the Koishikawa tree proves that
the Tokyo cherry has a history that is at least as
old as the early nineteenth century.
the feudal tokyo cherry
Some of the powerful lords with larger gardens
collected rare specimen plants. For cherries it
was customary to have several varieties, each as
a single specimen. The collection of a minister,
Matsudaira Sadanobu, to give an example, was
perhaps the most extensive and is well documented
in the form of a painted scroll that gives a hundred
and twenty-four named varieties in detail. There
was simply no thought that these precious plants
should be mass reproduced as a clonal cultivar:
only a few spare ones would be held somewhere,
reproduced from seed or by grafting to keep a
unique treasure secure. Cherries were élite plants,
and such élite collections were studied by literary
men specializing in amateur cherry painting.26
A painting of a ‘Yoshino’ cherry is attributed to
Hirose Ka’in (1772?–c.1849). It is dated after
1824 when he travelled from his home in Kyoto
to Edo to paint cherries and before c.1849 when
he died (Figure 7).27
A further source is a list of cherries for
sale from a specialized nursery. Surprisingly, it is
inserted between the pages of a richly illustrated
book on variegated plants that were very popular
at that time in Japan.28 Written by a gardener
from Aoyama, supported by gardener Genji from
Somei, this plant guide was published in three
volumes, addressing both enthusiast amateurs and
professional horticulturalists.29 The description
that goes with the cherry ‘Yoshino-yama’ in this
list is: ‘single-flowered, middle sized; when in full
bloom, it is fading a little to a tender white –
superb’ (Figure 8). The fading is about the soft
Figure 8. A list of one hundred and fifty
cherries is styled as a sumo jury list: the
top row shows ranks of the sumo wrestlers,
such as Ōzeki. In the second row from
above, names of famed wrestlers are
replaced by cherry names. With wit, the
single-flowered, wild Japanese mountain
cherry stands proudly in the middle as the
referee of the game. Fifth to the left of the
referee is ‘Yoshino-yama’. Numerous lower
ranking cherries are given in the lower
rows; from Uekiya Kinta, Masuda Hantei
and Somei Genji, Sōmoku kihin kagami [A
Model Book of Treasured Plants and Trees]
(Edo and Aoyama: Shigetei (Kinta), 1827);
collection Chiba University

a cherry gardener in tokyo’s ueno pa rk
113
references
Note: Japanese personal names are given family
name first, followed by given names.
1 Wybe Kuitert, ‘Japanese cherry pride on
foreign ground’, in Jan Woudstra and C. Allen
(eds), The Politics of Street Trees (Sheffield:
University of Sheffield and Routledge, 2022),
pp. 135–48.
2 The Tokyo Cherry introduced in detail
in Wybe Kuitert, ‘Observations on the Tokyo
cherry’, Shakkei, 28/3 (2021–22), pp. 2–8. On
recent taxonomy of the clonal Tokyo cherry,
see Katsuki Toshio and Iketani Hiroyuki,
‘Nomenclature of Tokyo cherry (Cerasus ×
yedoensis ‘Somei-yoshino’, Rosaceae) and allied
interspecific hybrids based on recent advances
in population genetics’, Taxon 65/6 (2016), pp.
1415–19.
3 This early history is introduced in Wybe
Kuitert, Japanese Flowering Cherries (Portland:
Timber, 1999), pp. 69, 198.
4 Wybe Kuitert, ‘Cultural values and
political change: cherry gardening in ancient
Japan’, in Michel Conan and W. J. Kress (eds),
Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations
and Cultural Changes (Washington, DC:
Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 128–45,
at 135.
5 Satō Taihei, Sakura to Nihon minzoku
[Cherries and the Japanese Race] (Tokyo: Daitō
Shuppansha, 1937), pp. 189–90.
pink flush over a tree after having come in bloom
that shifts to a soft white after a few days, a
characteristic of the Tokyo cherry.30 Lacking an
illustration, this cherry list is more general, while
Hirose’s painting shows a strain, produced when
growing a Tokyo cherry from seed.
conclusions
Kawashima Gonbei cannot have been the first
breeder of the Tokyo cherry. As a cultivated plant
it was known as ‘Yoshino’ or ‘Yoshino-yama’ and
propagated either by seed or by clone and was
famed among specialists from at least the 1820s.
With the collapse of feudal society, innovative,
more liberal nursery releases and mass sales came
into focus. Gonbei took the opportunity to use his
skill in selecting cherries, grafting, propagating
and marketing, to mass release an easily grown,
spectacular Tokyo cherry. It is possible that his
‘mother tree’ was the one in Koishikawa Garden,
which is of the same clone as the mass of the
Ueno trees. Whether this historic tree was planted
by his ancestors, we do not know, but Gonbei’s
shrewd approach to marketing his Tokyo cherry
might have been the very reason that he so far has
remained somewhat obscured in history.
wybe kuitert
Tarthorst, Wageningen NL-6708HN,
the Netherlands
goedemorgen@snu.ac.kr
6 The old trees at Koganei were legally
designated as a National Site of Scenic Beauty
in 1924 through the efforts of Miyoshi
Manabu; on the history of the cherries, see
https://www.city.koganei.lg.jp/kankobunka/
bunkazai/sakuraayumi/koganeibasi1.html
(accessed on 2 October 2021).
7 For the history of Ueno Park with facts
and dates, see Ueno Sightseeing Federation,
Ueno Park and the Surrounding Area: 100
Years of History 1. Here with reference to the
section on the Meij Period, see https://ueno.
or.jp/rekishi4/ (accessed on 20 December 2020).
8 On the details of the Yamamoto Tea
House at the Shitaya-hirokōji (Figure 2), see
Ootsu Yukio, Nihon jitensha-shi kenkyūkai
no burogu, Blog, 30 March 2008, http://
ordinarycyc.blogspot.com/2009/03/ (accessed
on 30 March 2021); see also Frank Brinkley,
Japan: Described and Illustrated by the
Japanese (Boston: J. B. Millet Co., 1897–98),
Imperial edition, Section 4, p. 146.
9 Many years later this vernacular name
was published in a horticultural magazine
to become generally accepted; Fujino Kimei
(Yorinaga), ‘Ueno-Kōen ōka no shurui’ [Species
of flowering cherries in Ueno Park], Nippon
Engeikai Zasshi, 92 (1900), pp. 1–9; Makino
Tomitarō, ‘Somei-yoshino toha darega meizeshi
sakura no naka’ [As a cherry name, who
gave ‘Somei-yoshino’ its epithet?], Journal of
Japanese Botany, 3/1 (1926), pp. 6–8.
10 Wybe Kuitert, Japanese Gardens and
Landscapes, 1655–1950 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), pp.
1–85.
11 After yakunin, accompanying officials.
12 Robert Fortune, Yedo and Peking, A
Narrative of a Journey to the Capitals of Japan
and China (London: John Murray, 1863), pp.
109–10.
13 Author’s translation from Maeda Shozan,
Shozan Engei [Shozan’s Horticulture] (Tokyo:
Shūseidō, 1911), pp. 83–84. Shozan (1872–
1941) was a novelist and writer, whose interest
in horticulture is seen in the first decades of the
twentieth century.
14 The Tokyo cherry was, for example,
offered for export by several nurseries,
including Takaghi & Co. (Wholesale Price List
1899, Tokyo); The Yokohama Nursery Co. Ltd
(Descriptive Catalogue 1899, Yokohama) with
a picture of Tokyo cherries as ‘avenue trees’
planted in front of their office from the 1906
catalogue on; Louis Boehmer & Co. (Wholesale
Catalogue for 1901–02, Yokohama); and
Rihachiro Tanoi (Catalogue 1907, Yokohama).
The US government imported thirty different
cultivated forms of cherries in 1903, leading
to an Arbor Day planting of cherries (most
likely Tokyo cherries) at public schools in
1908 and the planting of 1800 Tokyo cherries
at the Potomac project starting in 1912, both
in Washington, DC; Roland M. Jefferson and
Alan E. Fusoni, The Japanese Flowering Cherry
Trees of Washington, DC. A Living Symbol of

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Friendship (Washington, DC: USDA National
Arboretum Contribution 4, 1977); Anthony
S. Aiello, ‘Japanese flowering cherries – a
100-year-long love affair’, Arnoldia, 69/4
(2012), pp. 2–14.
15 Furutami Takayuki (ed.), Tōkyō
yūmei uekishi ichiran [A List of the Famous
Gardeners of Tokyo] (Tokyo: Asakusa, 1886),
kept in the collections of the Toshima Ward
Archives, Tokyo. Tatsui Takenosuke discovered
the list as a handwritten copy by Iida Jūki
(1890–1977), who introduced cheap garden
design by instant transplanting. ‘Transplanting
Masters’ (kaemono-shi) in this source should
be understood as specialists in this technique
of instant transplanting of root-balled trees
(uekaemono), which was a novel business;
Tatsui Takenosuke (ed.), ‘Gendai Tōkyō no
niwa, Niwa bessatsu’ [Modern Tokyo gardens],
The Garden, special issue 19 (1981), pp. 183–
85. The list, so far unnoticed in Tokyo cherry
history research, is a crucial source in the
discussion on Kawashima Gonbei.
16 En’yū-sha Shujin, Edo sakura to ohanami,
vol. 3 [Edo’s Cherries and Blossom Festivals].
Blog at Hatena (3 June 2011), https://
b4ea36g1.hatenablog.com/entry/19365810
(accessed on 12 December 2019), without
further source, but referring to Kawashima
Gonbei from the nursery Ōkō-en. It could have
been young Gonbei, perhaps accompanying his
father.
17 This becomes clear from historical maps
of the Tokyo area, the so-called Jinsoku-
sokuzu, military maps of the 1880s that can be
compared with modern Tokyo; The National
Agriculture and Food Research Organization
(NARO), https://habs.rad.naro.go.jp/compare.
html (accessed on 19 December 2020).
18 Anon., ‘Somei-yoshino no kenkyū de
sakura kōrōsha: Kōnomori Shōzō’ [From cherry
research to a distinguished person in cherries:
Kōnomori Shōzō], Toshima, 666 (5 April
1987), p. 3. I thank Mrs Kōnomori Emiko for
introducing me to the research of her father.
19 Kawashima Ginzō, Ōkō-en aruji,
baiyōsha Kawashima Ginzō [Cherry Fragrance
Garden Principal, Propagator Kawashima
Ginzō] (Tokyo: Sugamochō Kami-komagome
(Somei) 334 banchi, 1910), commercial poster
catalogue, private collection, previously owned
by cherry researcher Funatsu Seisaku.
20 Kōnomori Shōzō, The Sakura, tsuzuku
Somei-yoshino-zakura no kigen [The Cherry,
On the Origin of the Somei-yoshino Cherry,
Continued] (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Shintaku Ginkō,
1985), pp. 15–25.
21 Iketani Hiroyuki, ‘Koishikawa
shokubutsuen no “Someiyoshino”’ [The
‘Someiyoshino’ of the Koishikawa Botanical
Gardens], Newsletter of the Friend Society of
Koishikawa Botanical Gardens, 46 (2013),
pp. 1–3. I thank Dr Iketani Hiroyuki for
both valuable comments and introducing his
research. Matsumura Jinzō gave the clonal
Tokyo cherry its new Latin name Prunus
yedoensis; Matsumura Jinzō, ‘Cerasi Japonicae
duae Species novae’, The Botanical Magazine,
15/174 (1901), pp. 99–101.
22 Nakai Takenoshin, ‘Koishikawa
Shokubutsuen no Somei-yoshino no sakura no
rōboku ni tsuite’ [About the old ‘Someiyoshino’
tree in the Koishikawa Botanical Garden], The
Journal of Japanese Botany, 11/5 (1935), pp.
341–46.
23 Ibid., p. 345, shows a huge and spreading
tree in a poor reproduction of an 1876 painting
of the garden.
24 Iwasaki Fumio, ‘Someiyoshino no kigen
ni kansuru sho bunken no chōsa kekka’
[Bibliographical studies on the origin of the
flowering cherry, Somei-yoshino (Prunus
yedoensis ‘Matsumura’), in Japanese with an
English summary], Bulletin of Agriculture
& Forestry Research. University Tsukuba, 1
(1989), pp. 85–103; ‘Somei-yoshino to sono
kin’en-shu no yasei jōtai to Somei-yoshino no
hasseichi’ [The wild state of the Tokyo cherry
and related species, and the place of origin
of the Tokyo cherry], Bulletin of Agriculture
& Forestry Research. University Tsukuba 3
(1991), pp. 95–110.
25 Known catalogues of the Itō family are,
for example: Itō Ihee III, Kadan-jikin-shō
[Flower Bed Embroideries] (1695); and Itō Ihee
IV, Zōho-jikinshō [Augmented Embroideries]
(1710). The role of the Itō family in the history
of the Tokyo cherry cannot be confirmed from
these or other sources known at present.
26 On the literary men as cherry painters,
see Kuitert, Japanese Flowering Cherries, pp.
61–68. On the garden and cherry collection of
Matsudaira Sadanobu, see Kuitert, Japanese
Gardens and Landscapes, pp. 26–30.
27 Miyoshi Manabu, Ka’in Ōfujo [Preface to
Ka’in’s Cherry Records], Sakura, 1/4 (1920),
p. 35; Satō, Sakura to Nihon minzoku, pp.
222–23.
28 Decades later, Robert Fortune refers to the
craze for variegated plants; Fortune, Yedo and
Peking, pp. 114–15.
29 Uekiya Kinta, Masuda Hantei and Somei
Genji, Sōmoku kihin kagami [A Model Book of
Treasured Plants and Trees] (Edo and Aoyama:
Shigetei (Kinta), 1827), p. 12. The list appears
to show the cherries of gardener Otokichi of
Yotsuya; the opposite page is a similar list for
Prunus mume.
30 On this source, see the online Nagoya
Horticultural Museum (Nagoya Engei
Hakubutsukan), https://nagoyaengei.co.jp/
hakubutukan/hakubutu/kaboku/kihin_sakura.
htm (accessed on 20 December 2020). The
fading of colour in cherry bloom (utsuri) is the
theme of a famous and classical poem by Ono
no Komachi in Kokin Wakashū, bk 2, no. 113,
in Iwanami Shoten (ed.), Nihon Koten Bungaku
Taikei [A Compendium of Classical Japanese
Literature], 100 vols (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
1958), 8: p. 124.

garden history
Journal of The Gardens Trust
50 : 1 (2022)
GARDEN HISTORY 50 : 1 (2022)
sUM M e r
2022