■Nathan Shiga: March 13

Cherry blossom or Sakura is Japan’s national flower that paints the whole of the nation brilliant pink in the springtime. Somei Yoshino is the most popular species and Kawazu Zakura is another well known to bloom earliest of all species.

Now, a new species of Sakura is found down in Kii Peninsula for the first time in 100 years and named after the place it was found Kumano Zakura, announced the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute.

A number of agrotypes Sakura are known, Somei Yoshino for one, but only 9 wild species are identified so far. The institute’s Tama Forest Science Garden in Hachioji had an extensive survey ongoing to classify cherry blossoms across the nation and just came up with a new species growing wild in an area 60 kilometers east-west in the southern part of Kii Peninsula.

Unlike the wild species of Cerasus jamasakura family, the new-found species of Sakura is light pink in color, with a shorter raceme, and blooms earlier. The last new Sakura species was found 103 years ago of Ooshima Zakura in 1915, and the institute named the species Kumano Zakura after the name of the locality Kumano.

Survey team leader Yoshio Katsuki comments:

“Kumano Zakura is delicately colorful, neither white nor deep pink. So charming that it should help attract many people to the beauty of wild cherry blossoms.

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