February cherry 2*

 

A very early flush of cherry blossom... three small trees on the Mount estate in Frome. These photos are from 22 February 2024, the blossom already slightly past its best.

(It's been another absurdly mild winter. Cherry Plum was out at the start of Feb, Blackthorn by mid Feb.)

Council estates are usually the parts of a town that least attract a visitor, but they can be great places for seeing interesting trees on public land.

I'm tempted to call this Prunus 'Kursar'. The only thing holding me back, really, is that the petals don't seem as dark pink as in most online images. But maybe the endless rain might contribute to that.

At any rate, it has to be one of the earliest cherries to blossom (leaving aside the winter cherry Prunus subhirtella).

Collingwood Ingram named his new variety 'Kursar', combining the names of the species he thought he had crossed, Prunus kurilensis and Prunus sargentii (Sargent Cherry). But the deep pink puzzled him, and later he decided that there must have been a label mix-up and the second parent was actually Prunus campanulata (Formosan Cherry).

NB the first parent is now called Prunus nipponica var kurilensis. Prunus nipponica is also known as the Japanese Alpine Cherry. 

* I always try to give my posts unique titles, so I was irritated to discover that I'd already used "February cherry". 

Here's the earlier post. (It's about a different variety I think, a winter cherry grafted on Tibetan.)

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2020/02/february-cherry.html